Thursday August 22, 2019
Today was our last early morning wake up call at Hamilton’s. It was also the coldest morning yet, maybe 6-7 C. It was cold enough that we could see our breath.
Our game drive was just the 4 of us plus Darryl again. We had difficulty finding much this morning. I asked Darryl whether this was on account of the weather and he said no, cold mornings are typically quite good for game viewing – it’s the heat that usually puts the animals off. We focused on cheetahs again, to no avail, and finally gave up on them. We also spent some time searching for a pack of wild dogs that live in the area. Granted, these are some of the most elusive animals in Kruger, so it didn’t really come as a surprise that we came up empty handed.
We did find the male and female lion pair again.
We also saw some giraffes and elephants. Our morning coffee stop was much appreciated – there was a shot of something in the coffee, that certainly helped to warm us up! Hamilton’s also provides these fleece lined ponchos to keep guests warm on game drives. This was the first time that we all felt compelled to use one.
At the end of the game drive, we had a fun encounter with an elephant Darryl calls Fred, who likes to hang out at Hamilton’s Tented Camp. He blocked our vehicle on our drive back to the camp, and made a big scene right in front of the main tent.
We said goodbye to Darryl, had breakfast, and packed up to leave. We drove out of Kruger National Park via Orpen Gate. There was still plenty of wildlife to see inside the park before we reached the gate, including a couple of new-to-us sightings for Kruger, an ostrich and a hippo. We also came across this sight – perhaps one of my favourite photos from the entire trip:
We had held out some hope that we might be able to find a cheetah on our self-drive, but it simply wasn’t meant to be.
We were headed back towards Johannesburg, and decided to take the slightly longer Panorama Route from the park gate to Pilgrims Rest. Although there are plenty of sights along the way, we limited ourselves to 3, and still had difficulty making it to our hotel before dark! We made stops at the Three Rondavels…
the Bourke’s Luck Potholes…
and God’s Window.
We also stopped to eat along the way at the Chubby Pig, which was an odd little place in the middle of nowhere, but well worth it with good food.
We pulled into the Crystal Springs Mountain Lodge in Pilgrims Rest right as it got completely dark. It was too bad that we didn’t have more time there, as the scenery was impressive and there were a huge number of on-site activities we could have participated in. We unloaded our things, and headed down to the pizzeria for a bite to eat and wifi access. The wifi was extremely slow and convoluted, so we didn’t last too long, but kids were happy to reconnect after our time in the bush. We went back to room to pack up for our flights tomorrow, and it was early to bed.
Cook Family Travels 