I had collected guests earlier the day from the Skukuza Airport who would be spending the next 3 nights with us at Selati Camp. Two of my guests had just come from a trip in Kenya where they had gone to view the great migration, very jealous I must add as it is a trip high up on my bucket list, and the other 4 were experiencing their first safari.

15h30 came and high tea was served, just to make sure no one would go hungry on safari and with some special treats prepared by our head chef Gift, they dived right in. The clock struck 4pm and excitement was building for my guests as they were eager to see what nature the Sabi Sabi Reserve had to offer.

My tracker, Sydney, introduced himself to all and after a pre-drive briefing we were on our way, it was a rather hot day I must add. The one couple had said they had hoped to see rhino as they had eluded them during their stay in Kenya, so Sydney and myself had a plan in mind, let’s go check out some watering holes and hopefully because of the 35+ degree weather we would find a prehistoric looking animal cooling down. After about 30 minutes we approached our first watering hole and could not believe our eyes, 8 white rhino laying in the water cooling down. It was definitely a WOW moment as one of the guests had described it, but that’s not all Mother Nature had planned.

After spending 20 minutes watching them rolling around, a pack of 5 wild dogs appeared, a double WOW moment. Our attention soon shifted to them as they were rolling around in a small pool of water and one came to rest right beside our vehicle. A dazzle of zebra were grazing in the distance and some of the wild dogs kept an ever watchful eye on them, but with no foals in the harem, they soon lost interest and went to lay down in a nearby open area as the sun was setting.

We headed back to camp that evening for a delicious meal, again prepared by Gift, and a gift is what she is, a guest stated. The next morning, we awoke to chaos in the bush... Hyenas’ excited laughter combined with shrieking trumpeting from elephants. After a bit of driving around the block where the sounds were coming from, we managed to locate the hyenas finishing off the remains of an impala carcass with the elephants standing in a line of defence and every now and then would charge at them in an attempt to ward them off, but hyenas being as confident as they are were not too perturbed and finished off the remains and headed off to a watering hole leaving the elephants to feed in peace without any interference.

Our last memorable sighting was of a leopardess who had a duiker kill secured high up in a dead Marula tree. It was a cool overcast afternoon and with the sun setting as we arrived at the sighting. She was pretty much motionless but every so often would re-adjust herself as she was getting uncomfortable with her rather full belly. What made this sighting so special was more of a photographic reason. The human eye corrects differences in light colour, so everything can seem ‘normal’ to us but once the shutters of the camera were depressed the results were breath-taking. A cold blue sky appeared and served as the backdrop for the feline at rest which became visible whilst replaying images on the LCD screen on the back of the camera.

This sure was a great weekend to remember!