Today we had our last game drive in Phinda, and our first drive at Lion Sands Mountain Lodge. Where Phinda was located on a private reserve a long way from anything else, Lion Sands is technically inside the Kruger National Park, the largest park in South Africa. It operates a private concession on a part of the park, and is next to the privately owned Sabi Sands area. The latter is where we stayed on our last trip to South Africa.

The morning started as always with some coffee and snacks before we took off with Darren and Mandla for the drive. As usual, the monkeys were around, looking for an opportunity to join us for muffins, cookies, apples, etc.

Back when I used to do a lot of landscape photography we would often wake before dawn (1) to capture the beautiful, warm morning light. Since we’re out just after sunrise every morning, I look for opportunities to capture images that show off the glow.

An hour after sunrise, the glow is gone. It doesn’t mean you can’t get great images, but it does mean they won’t look the same.

We drove for a while, looking for interesting animals, but we needed to end the drive early; our flight was at 11:00, so we needed to be back for breakfast by 9:00. We opted to take advantage of a 45 minute “bush walk”, where we left the vehicle with our guide and walked amongst the animals. The walk wasn’t really through the bush; we stopped about a mile from the lodge and walked the rest of the way on the same dirt roads we had been driving on.

Darren accompanied us with his rifle and his radio, while Mandla took the vehicle back to camp. Before we started out, Darren gave us our safety briefing. The two most important items: when he says stop, freeze immediately; and never run from an animal – it convinces them you must be tasty. And you can’t outrun any of them, anyway.

We didn’t see any of the big or exotic animals on our 45 minute walk. But it was cool to be on the road when some nyala (2) and warthogs ambled by.

Unlike our trip from Cape Town to Phinda – which involved a scheduled flight from CPT to Durban, followed by a four hour drive to the camp – this was a much easier trip. We drove 15 minutes from the lodge to the Phinda airstrip, which is a piece of tarmac in the middle of the bush. No terminal building, no security, no control tower. There we boarded a seven passenger plane we chartered (plus two pilots/cabin attendants/luggage handlers) for a 45 minute flight to Skukuza Ariport in Kruger, which is a piece of tarmac in the middle of the bush. But it had a terminal building, a control tower, security, etc. All of the trappings of modern air travel. From there, it is a five minute drive to Lion Sands Tinga Lodge.

That’s all for the morning, and that completes our stay at the Phinda Mountain Lodge. The next post will continue in the afternoon at Lion Sands.

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(1) Dawn in August in the Sierra Nevada is around 6:00; if you’re an hour drive plus a 30 minute hike to your targeted location, that’s a 3:30 am wake-up.

(2) Not a misprint.