MIKESTOPFORTH

I was a fortunate kid – my folks committed to giving my brother and I two good holidays a year, and for over ten years, every year, we made pilgrimages to the Kruger National Park in July (when it’s perfect for game viewing) and to Pennington on the South Coast of KwaZulu Natal in December.  I treasure those experiences today and the two destinations remain favourites.

One of my fonder memories of Kruger Park was rushing into Skukuza, the largest camp and I guess ‘capital’ of the park, to catch up on what amazing things other people had seen on their game drives.  This was Web 2.0, analog style :)  Firstly we’d check the guestbook which would have written updates of what had been seen in the last few hours and secondly we’d rush into the superette, where the Kodak printing center was, to see what amazing photo’s people had printed.  You see, anytime the Kodak guys found an exceptional photo in the piles of stuff that came through their desk they’d ask the owner of the pic if they could print a duplicate and display it on the desk.

Some of those pics where amazing – a pride of lions bringing down a buffalo in the middle of a road, a rock python swallowing an impala, a leopard scrambling up the side of a tree with it’s warthog prey in it’s jaws – I could spend hours looking at other people pics.

But nothing I saw there compares to what I’ve just picked up on Muti…

The Telegraph Newspaper recently published pics caught by a wildlife photographer in Kruger, documenting for the first time in history a leopard taking a (reasonably sized) crocodile as prey.  They are unbelievable…

Sorry, I just realised that was a looong story to refer you to a very simple link, but I got nostalgiac.

What’s the most amazing thing you’ve ever seen in a game reserve?