A 48 mile 5 1/2 hour drive

We left Skukuza Rest Camp at 6:50 for a 48 mile drive on paved roads to Lower Sabie Rest Camp.  The speed limit in the park is 30 miles a hour.  Never did we get above 14 miles a hour.  In fact a glance at Tommy our GPS unit almost always indicated 7-9 miles a hour.  We  drive at that speed with eyes peeled on the road side brush for game and we are rewarded with sightings about one every mile or less.  I alone took 232 pictures today, and I am sure Patsy took at least that many, not to mention that Ron was also snapping away.  Obviously you wouldn't want to see that many photos so I culled it down to the ones below.  We saw 14 different species of animals and several different birds.  It turned out to be just another great day in Kruger.

Patsy and Pat leavening Skukuza Rest Camp[

Lion protecting his kill

We had barley left the camp when we happened upon a lion and his fresh kill right next to the road behind some brush.   This is our second such sighting.

The picture isn't pretty or a very good photo but it shows the Lion standing over their prey.  This time the unfortunate one was a Water Buffalo.  The were 5 Lions around the kill and it probably took more than one to bring down this big animal.

Elephants playing in the water was something I thought would never see in the wild.

We spotted a herd of elephants crossing a river valley full of tall grass, there were somewhere around 8 adults and 4 babies that we could see.  They were moving along in single file toward the river.  Ron thought he could get us closer to them further up the road so we slowly moved on and YES the road did bend around and come up next to the river.  Most of the herd had already crossed but these two had lagged behind to play in the water on the hot afternoon.  We watched to smaller one roll around, lay down and just generally enjoy himself until the larger one moved on and he felt he must follow or be left behind. 

There is so much more we would like to share but uploading photos is very slow tonight and we have to get up before dawn to go on a Ranger lead sunrise game drive so for now this will have to be the end of this post.