Giants of Kruger - Elephants

When I think of elephants - these huge, intelligent and social land mammals - I just realize how small this incredibly big Kruger park is. When the Sabie Game Reserve was established in 1920 there were only 120 elephants in the area. In the 70s their population grew close to 9000. By now this number is over 11,500. The living capacity of the park is about 8,000. Of course this holds several problems for the biggest land mammals on Earth..







But from our own experience with Tarryn every encounter with the elephants were majestic and notable. Sometimes they just walked out of the bush and that was both a surprise for the big one as much as it was for us. It was a memorable moment when an elephant was showing his back to the road and as we were cruising we stopped by. When he turned around after a while he couldn't figure how we got there suddenly and scared us with his trunk. But we stood the test, we stayed there while looking at the elephants body language. Nothing happened and in couple of minutes time the big male was back to eating some roots again.

Another great story to remember when our car gear change broke down due to the shaky road. The gear box just fell apart and it was not usable. Just imagine. Tarr couldn't go forward so we had to wait as a whole family was passing in front of us from the left to the right. And one of the young ones got curious and came close to us to examine the alien object. That can be quite scary I can tell you ! Thankfully - just as Tarr started shaking next to me - we released the hand brake and we went backward to a safe distance from the curious elephant. Later on we had to fix the gear box on the spot. An hour after that experience it all became a great story to tell.

Of course we always had to give right-of-way of this big animals when they decided to cross the road and stopped at a safe distance, but we could spend hours just to look at them as they were eating grass, bark and leaves close to us.

Elephants very rarely attack humans but as we found out due to their migration habits and increasing numbers in the park they crash through the park's fences, terrorizing nearby villages and wiping out fields of crops.

Yeah these beautiful creations can cause some trouble to humans, but at the end of the day they were here first and cant be simply surrounded by a fence even though as big as Kruger itself.

to be continued...

The big White Rhino Encounter

Just imagine driving around from the morning in Kruger - which on its own is a fantastic feeling - and waiting for the next game and figure what is about to show up around the next area. Neither Tarryn nor me imagined that our first encounter with one of the Big 5 would be such a majestic moment.
Cruising slowly on the asphalt roads for about 3 hours and paying attention to every detail and every movement in the bush can really use up all your concentration energy. We just relaxed our mind and chatted about the impalas. And when we least expected there he was: our first White Rhino we had ever seen. It was almost a mixture of a shock and amazement. You truly have to be there to enjoy, but I hope my photos will share some of this excitement with you.

Tarryn spotted first the huge and grey body in the distance, which looked like a tank. We stopped the car and remained silent. Minutes passed by and the rhino started moving. Right toward us. Since this was our first time, we didnt know what to expect and I can tell U the adrenaline level in our blood was up in the sky. And it was just coming closer and closer. Probably 20 minutes passed by although "out" in the wild time is measured on a different scale. Finally it stopped near a dry and green patch of grass right beside our car. We saw the heavily built body in its full reality. These are the wonderful moments in Kruger. You are in the safety of your car, the wild animal doesnt recognize you as a threat or as a human, but if it attacked we wouldnt have been safe anymore whether we were in a car or not. But this didnt happen, we were silent spectators of this little show and enjoyed watching the white rhino.

Another 15 min could have passed when the body started moving closer to the road and just passed across the road along with the funny passengers on his body.Even if there are almost 9,000 White rhinos in the park, its still not that easy to spot one. We met people who had been in the park for days and still hadnt seen a rhino. Yeah the wildlife is unpredictable.
Since there were no more cars on the spot I had the privilege with Tarryn to be part of this amazing encounter. If we had seen only this one individual we would have been content for the day. But in the wild every minute brings you something else, so the excitement just started ...













































Two Red-billed Oxpeckers are traveling on the rhinos back while ticking parasites hidden in the thick skin.