It was a moving day for us, and some extra excitement was in store. Our time at Satara was finished, and Irving hooked up the trailer. We loaded our luggage, took one last look at our rooms to be sure we hadn’t left anything, and headed back to Skukuza for our stay there. On the way, we were in for more wild animal sightings and a few detours to explore the savanna.

Kruger has no shortage of elephants, it seems. We stopped at a wildlife reservoir and found two elephants happily drinking from the ample water supply. The high-walled reservoirs were designed and built to provide water during dry seasons. The elephants had no problem reaching over the wall with their trunks to quench their thirst.

People don’t mind stopping when an animal crosses the road. It’s a refreshing change from people being honked at when a driver is in a hurry, and a pedestrian crosses a city street.

On day one, we saw a klipspringer standing on a rock. On this day, we spotted one relaxing on a rock outcropping. As I noted in the Day One post, the klipspringer is a small, sturdy antelope native to eastern and southern Africa. Klipspringers navigate steep cliffs and treacherous terrain easily.

Crocodiles grow big in South Africa, reaching lengths of up to 6 meters (20 feet) and weighing over 1,000 kilograms (2,200 pounds). This one was sunning himself, but as we found out on day six, they can be aggressive.

We saw many lions on our journey to Skukuza and on our afternoon game drive. At a small watering hole, a lion and hyena were hanging out.

As the lion finished drinking and started walking away, she stopped and looked in our direction. Apparently, she decided we weren’t either a threat or prey, and she went on her way. We followed her for a while as she walked roughly parallel to the road.

There are several photos of the lions we saw on my Flickr site. A link to the album is at the end of this post. We saw only female lions on this day.

We headed to a viewpoint high on a mountain to view the savanna. It was there that we first noticed a wildfire off in the distance.

We got a close-up view of this nyala as we waited for him to cross the road. On day two of this series, I mentioned a nyala was the target of a lion, but I didn’t get any good photos of this medium-sized antelope. Nyala bucks have a slender build, long legs, and a flowing mane running down their necks and backs.

The most striking feature of a nyala buck is its impressive pair of curved horns, but their markings remind me of someone in a 1970s leisure suit.

As we continued toward Skukuza, we also found the fire getting closer. We soon found that the road to Skukuza had places where the fire was burning on both sides. We covered our noses and mouths with bandanas to avoid breathing in the worst of the smoke. I didn’t take many photos of the fire, but I did take a short video as we went by a crew working to reduce the fire. Scroll down to see the video.

I apologize for the shaky video. I didn’t have a tripod, and this handheld video demonstrates why I mostly stick to still photographs. I have no future in YouTube. At one point, the radiant heat from the fire caused us to duck behind the sidewalls of the safari vehicle to avoid getting burned. Some have reported a network error message on the video. If you get that error, and there’s a pop-out option on the video, try that. It seems to work. Alternatively, you can click here to watch it on my Flickr page.

As we settled into the Jamie Mulhovo Guest House for our three-day stay, we could see the fire near the airport we would fly out of. One of the guest house staff members mentioned that the airport was on fire. As it turned out, it was minor damage. When we flew out of Skukuza, the baggage collection and ticketing area was closed, and tents were set up outside to provide a waiting area for departing passengers.

The flames and glow of the fire in the smoke were much more prominent that night. This photo was from outside our guest house. By morning, much of the fire had burned out due to the work of firefighters and the fact that there wasn’t a lot of fuel remaining in the burned-out sections. You can check out Dries’ post here for more photos and a more detailed description of the fire.

As the sun set on the savanna, a smoky haze helped to reflect the orange sunset. After dinner, an early bedtime was again in order, as 4 AM came early. We would see the aftermath of some of the fire on our game drive. We also saw the largest herd of cape buffalo that we encountered. The herd was so vast that I had to create a seven-image panoramic photo and still couldn’t encompass the entire herd. Day Five photos will be posted on December 6.

I posted 38 pictures in 2K HD from our day four drives on my Flickr site. Click here if you want to see more.

John Steiner