Day 11:
Pretoriuskop to Berg-en-Dal

Date: 2024-08-13

Departure From:  Pretoriuskop Rest Camp

Departure Time: 06h00

Destination Name:  Berg-en-Dal Rest Camp

Arrival Time: 11h40

Total Travel time:  5:40 hours

Weather:

The temperature was 15C on departure with clear skies .

The temperature remained comfortable at 24C.  The fact I was in the mountains held keep the temperature lower than on the lower plains.

Odometer Reading (km):

Start:   238 161
End:  238 301
Total Distance: 140
Includes 129km drive & 11km day drive

Trip Summary:

You never know what you may witness in the park.  Most days will be game viewing without any real excitement, like a Lion kill or Cheetah chase.

Each morning when I left at 06h00 it was still dark so I needed to switch on my Defender's headlights.  Today they did not work.  I decided to continue and used my vehicle's spot lights.  By 06h20, it was light enough to switch the spot lights off.

During the day I saw the common sightings, however I  witnessed something very exciting.  As I was driving from west to east along the H1-1, I saw vehicles stopped further up the road. I thought "Lion or Leopard sighting".  

I slowed down and noticed Wild Dogs running through the traffic from the north side to the south side of the road.  The next minute all hell broke loose.  There was loud trumpeting and vehicles started rapidly reversing. The Wild Dogs returned onto the road and ran eastwards along the road.  A family of elephant came charging out of the bush onto the road.  The 5 adults had surrounded the 2 calves and the trumpeting group chased the Wild Dogs eastwards.  After about 150m the Elephants stopped.  The adults remained surrounding  the calves all facing outwards flapping their ears and checking for danger. After about about 5 minutes, they could see the danger had passed and moved north into the bush allowing traffic to pass.  What a rush to witness this. 

While driving along the S119 a combi approached and waved me down.  It was the same guy I met the previous day along another road and we had exchanged information. He indicated that there were eight White Rhino in the Mbambane riverbed about 500m away.  By the time I got there, they had moved up against the northern riverbank and I could clearly see them.

After marking my camp site, I drove about 5km to the Matjulu Waterhole where I spent the rest of the afternoon.  I enjoyed watching the coming and goings of animals and see how they approach the waterhole to ensure their is no danger and interact with each other.  Four Ground Hornbills spent the afternoon sifting through the Elephant dung looking for insects.

On returning to camp, I checked the fuse box to determine why the headlights would not work.  All the fuses were still good.  I realised that the headlight power relay would possibly be the cause and would try and source one in Nelspruit.