Day 285 May 17 2015 Komatipoort South Africa

waiting for the sunrise drive to start

we got up too early for this!

this guy was getting ready to take out the SUV

just another rhino

"the last supper" in Kruger

a chameleon crossing the road

Day 285  May 17 2015  Komatipoort  South Africa

We made the mistake of taking the 3 hour sunrise drive this morning.  We had to be at the meeting point at 4:45 am.  We did not see very many animals the ones we did see were far away.  We got back to the camp at 8 am and we ate breakfast and packed up.  We left the camp at 10 am and drove towards the Crocodile Bridges gate.  On the way we saw the expected giraffes, rhino, impala, elephant, wildebeest, zebra, hippos, crocodiles and buffalo.  We also saw a dung beetle rolling his ball of dung across the road and a lion dragging a freshly killed impala.  One of the elephants that we saw started walking towards the car then stopped and shook his head and started to swing his foot a bit.  He then blew his trunk onto the ground causing a cloud of dust to rise.  I immediately backed up a 100 feet but the elephant still looked like he was getting ready to charge.  I backed up another 100 feet and he eventually went back to the tree that he had been eating.  Getting stared down by an elephant that is substantially larger than the vehicle is defiantly a reason to be concerned.   We checked into the hotel shortly after 1 pm then went looking for a restaurant.  We could find nothing open in the town we were in so we decided to drive the 50 km to the Berg-en-dal rest camp to eat at the camp restaurant.  On the way to the camp we saw zebra, elephant, giraffe and wildebeest as well as a chameleon crossing the road.  After supper we took the gravel road towards the gate and got really close to a few rhino, giraffe and an elephant.  We also spotted a grey rhebok which was another animal that we had not yet seen.  We are done visiting Kruger and it has been an amazing experience and enjoyed by everyone.    We were expecting to be planning our next few days at the hotel but the internet does not work.  We know we are heading toward the St. Lucia estuary but do not have a clue what is available for accommodation or what there is to see around the area.  I guess we will be looking for a restaurant or coffee shop that has internet access tomorrow.