Baby white rhino sighting

COUNTRY: South Africa
PROGRAM: GapBreak
PROJECT: Wildlife Conservation & Black Leopard Research
WRITTEN BY: Heather Gelliot and Olivia Pointon

Last week we went to Kruger National Park, and saw so many amazing things! 5 minutes into the park we saw a mother and baby white rhino. We also saw lots of elephant and a buffalo on our first day, and a civet during the daytime, which is extremely rare.

On our second day, we started out as soon as the gates opened at 5.30am, and saw another mother and baby white rhino; this time crossing the road! That same day we also caught an elephant crossing the road, a giraffe with a wonky horn, and hippopotamuses sunbathing. We finished the day with a sunset game drive where we saw many more rhino – a total of 23 in 5 days!

On day 3 we caught some spectacular sightings. We were caught in the middle of a herd of about 300 buffalo as they crossed the road all around our vehicle! We saw lots of zebra, elephants, giraffe and antelope. The highlight of the day was watching two male hippos fighting over their territory – we were so close you could hear the crunches as they knocked jaws, and could see the blood spraying into the water. We couldn’t stay with the hippos for long as we had to race for the gates before they closed, but saw a young croc running across the road, a rhino with a spectacularly long horn, and a black-backed jackal on the drive back to our camp. Our tent was set up right on the fenceline and we watched the hyena prowling past as we ate dinner that night.

Day 4 started out with our first cat sighting at Kruger. We saw 3 cheetah from a distance, and raced to a lion sighting, but missed it by a fraction. In the afternoon, we found leopard spoor, and followed it to a waterhole using our tracking skills. Unfortunately, we did not actually see the leopards, and got a lot of strange looks as we drove with our heads hanging out the car windows looking for spoor. Later that day we saw 5 ground hornbills which are critically endangered, and lots more elephants, giraffe and zebra.

On our last day at Kruger we saw a black-backed jackal pouncing around, the ‘dagger boys’ (badass big male buffalo), and laughed at two male nyala stalking each other as if they were lions. We said goodbye to Kruger, and spent the rest of the morning Maholoholo Rehabilitation Centre. There, we were lucky enough to stroke a cheetah, scratched the neck of a battalier bird, and feed vultures. We were able to see lions, Delilah the leopard, African wild dogs and brown hyenas.

When we got back to camp, we were told that we had just missed two leopard sightings of Diamond Girl’s cubs by the dam. Although we were sad to leave Kruger, we will definitely have to go back one day to try to find those leopards!