Wild Sightings: An Olympian and Amazing Animals

After leaving the farm in Alexandria, we headed for East London, a large city on the southeastern coast of South Africa. East London would serve as the end of our Garden Route tour – and Tim picked it because of its airport access. East London is a big industrial zone, so there wasn’t much for us to do or see. And that was fine, because really, we were there to sleep on Monday night before flying to Johannesburg early Tuesday morning.

But we had something else to do on Monday evening and that was celebrate Tim’s birthday! We toasted Tim over a long dinner at a restaurant near to our hotel. Then we promptly returned to our hotel and fell right asleep; we needed our zzz’s before an early morning flight.

At 5:15am on Tuesday, we took our final drive in the Toyota Fortuner. There were already a lot of East Londoners out and about – running, walking to work, driving the roads.

Flight time from East London to Jo’burg ran one hour. Once we got to the Jo’burg airport, we had four hours to kill. That’s a long time when your kids are bouncing off the walls… At a certain point, I sent Taylor and Wyatt on a walk. They walked down the terminal and heard a lot of commotion at the end. They came back to Tim and me and announced there was a parade happening on the lower level. We all walked down to the railing to peer over and learned that South African Olympian and gold medalist Tatjana Smith would be entering the lower level shortly; her flight from Paris had recently landed. The lower level was packed for Tatjana’s arrival. School children were singing and dancing, media were already getting footage and interviews, there were tons of flags and welcome signs. It was so cool. And then we got to see Tatjana walk in! She wore her gold medal, grabbed a South African flag, and posed for a ton of photos and interviews. Definitely a neat experience.

South African gold medalist in swimming returns to Johannesburg!

Finally, it was time for our flight. We boarded another Airlink plane to Hoedspruit, a town in the Limpopo province of South Africa with excellent access to safaris. Thirty minutes later, we touched down in Hoedspruit. It was a lot warmer there than Cape Town or spots along the Garden Route (yay for the sun and warmth!). 

A van drove us from the airport to Kambaku Safari Lodge in Timbavati Private Reserve. Established in 1956, Timbavati Private Game Reserve covers 75,000 hectares (about 185,000 acres) of unfenced wilderness. Kruger National Park and the Sabi Sand Private Reserve border Timbavati and the animals roam freely in between all these areas.

Once we left the airport, we started seeing animals. On the 45-minute drive to our lodge, we saw elephants, impalas, kudus, baboons, monkeys, warthogs, and one turtle. All these sightings took place along the main road. We had to pass through a control gate to access Timbavati; the gate was there to screen for poachers. Security was quite high and intense at this gate.

We arrived at Kambaku close to 3pm. We were greeted by Savanna, the assistant manager; Aiden, our guide; and Moses, our tracker. All three staff members helped us settle in. We were taken to our rooms to freshen up, then we met in the main lodge for High Tea. After some snacks and delicious South African rooibos iced tea, we jumped into a jeep for our first game drive.

And wow, that first game drive did not disappoint. Fairly quickly, we saw impalas, zebras, elephants, giraffes, rhinos, hyenas, warthogs, and more. We were in awe, absolute awe. Aiden drove while Moses tracked. Joining us in the jeep were Alex and Theo, a French couple celebrating their honeymoon in South Africa. 

Soon, we came upon a tree which housed a dead warthog. Aiden shared that a mom leopard had come across this dead warthog (killed earlier by a male leopard) and hoisted it up in the tree so it would be safe from other predators while she fished her young cub out from its hiding place. He said we’d come back later and that perhaps we’d see the baby leopard eating.

That’s exactly what we did. We returned to the tree about 5:30pm and right away saw the baby eating. The mom was lounging on the ground near the tree, keeping a watchful eye on things. And then, all of a sudden, 6-7 hyenas materialized out of the bush. They came closer to the mom leopard. She jumped into the tree and started hissing at the hyenas. Her baby, sensing danger, attempted to hoist the warthog higher in the tree. Aiden told us that the baby was unsteady (only 2-3 months old) and if it fell, the hyenas would pounce. None of us wanted to see that. The hyenas still circled. All this time, our jeep was right in the mix. Like, we could have stuck a leg out of the jeep and touched a hyena. Wyatt was terrified, as he was on the end, closest to the action. Honestly, we were all terrified, wondering if the hyenas would pounce on us. Aiden and Moses sat there calmly, just watching the scene unfold. It was wild, literally. 

The hyenas are looking and sniffing and circling and waiting.

A little hard to see, but the baby leopard and dead warthog are in the center of this tree.

It got dark and Aiden said we had to go. He said we’d leave the leopards and hyenas to do their thing. By this time, the hyenas were giving up a bit, but not wholly. We backed out of the bush and got back on the road. On the way to the lodge, we saw the male leopard in a tree – not far from the tree the mom and baby were in. Turns out that, given the chance, the male leopard would kill the baby. This brutal action forces the mother back into estrus, giving the male a chance to mate sooner with her. We drove back to the lodge just hoping the baby leopard would make it through the night.

With all the excitement, we were well on our way to seeing the Big 5: elephant, leopard, rhino, lion, and buffalo.

Once back at the lodge, we were greeted by Sharon, the lodge manager. We took a quick break in our room and then met again in the main room for appetizers. There, we introduced ourselves to the other lodge guests, a family from Vancouver. All of us ate dinner together, including Sharon and Gideon, another guide. It was so fun talking with everyone and swapping stories about what we’d seen on our game drives.

Our first day in the bush had been stunning. Can’t wait for more!