Durban to Pafuri through Kruger Park,South Africa [2008]

For Christmas this year I decided to abandon red hats with bells and head off for a week long road cruising mission in search of elusive elapids, My
mission was to herpcruise at night and by day to travel around randomly photographing habitats..



My Journey begins in Durban and day one began by departing Durban with a 10hr drive to Hazyview just to the left of the Kruger. I then ended up at the
Phalaborwa gate of the Kruger Park to close off day 01.

2hrs from Durban the habitat is looking great I don't know of anyone who has herped these spots before , looks really promising.
132km to Harrismith , of course we never get there as we take the Ladysmith turnoff and head east and northwards on the N11 Towards the Kruger National Park.


Habitat to the Left of the N3 Motorway just before the Ladysmith Turnoff.







Habitat heading towards Ladysmith on the N11 , After this shot
most of the N11 is Farmed Montane Grassland with elevations between
1300m and 1600m



4 hours later and Within a few Kilometers the motorway takes a steep dive and the Montane Habitat
disappears almost instantly , what a sight to behold I felt much excitement as one gets the feeling
of true African style bush. Babboons are the first to greet me ! They love the
lower altitude well vegitated mountains.

I couldn't stop at everything I wanted to photograph as I would not have made my destination in time.
Anyway heres a quick emergency baboon shot from the car.



These shots show the habitat on the steep decline thereafter joining the east bound motorway heading toward
the Kruger , this motorway will take you into Maputo Mozambique (if you dont turn left)






Finally got to HazyView where I met Rick who manages a resort where the mfezi.com
tour had stayed the month before , Rick is also in the process of opening a
reptile park in Hazyview Town.
We cracked open some much needed cans of beer and began chating , all the while trying to avoid
their cyco zebra who seems to want to attack anyone who isn't rick. At the resort
they also have tame bushpigs , ostrich and mongeese that drink beer.
Within minutes of Rick mentioning it has been rather quite , we get a call out for a snake
at the local pub , apparently it's in the toilet! We get there and its the same old story
...the snake somehow has dissapeared? After puzzling for a while we managed to find that
the snake had crawled into a tiny crack behind the cistern. Whilst un-screwing the
cistern spit begins to fly out of nowhere into my face , we had found him.

Cobra in the toilet.






Whilst at the bar drinking our free reward beers for the call out we get another call.
This time a large brown snake in a backpackers shower.

Another Cobra..




Releasing the Cobra we Found in the Shower.




After that callout it was time to head for Phalaborwa !
Arrived at phalaborwa and got some shut-eye !

Good Morning!
Waking up in Phalaborwa is a great feeling , a quick shower
and some food and where off into the Park...

The Phalaborwa gate Kruger National Park - Excitement mounts.


Mopane worms , these critters where out in numbers throughout
the entire day , suprisingly even in peak summer heat these things
managed not to melt as they slowly crossed the tarred roads of the kruger
I must have seen about 8000 of these dor that day..



Another of the very common animals around during the day where these Hornbills.




Lots of these rocky outcrops along the way , prime snake habitat , would have loved to have
had the time to investigate....


Stopped for some lunch at a great picnic site and had some fun with
the old 'point n shoot' stitch function. The view from this place was unreal.



Moving further along ... One of many dry river beds.




Heading further up north with my goal of exiting the park at the pafuri gate ,I cross the tropic
of Capricorn and spot an elephant nearby...





The Shingwedzi River Crossing , This was an impressive place where I chillaxed just
enjoying the scenary for quite some time - Fish Eagles crying in the distance where
a comforting sound - A few folks on the bridge ahead of me had learned that throwing
bread into the river put on quite a display of diving yellow billed kites....
Managed to get a nice in-flight shot aswell...

Me ! Found another toy to play with - 10sec self timer !! nice!


Kite in Flight...




Here you can see the kite diving for bread..




After a nice break I needed to make some tracks in order to exit the park
before dark , these are some of the better habitats I encountered
heading Northwards to the pafuri gate.





Getting close to the Northern most part of the kruger now..
Another panoramic ! Couldnt resist ....


Drove straight passed these guys !! Only someone behind me flashing his lights
like a mad man got me turning back to see what the **** was going on..
Lions Humping!



Final destination - the Pafuri Gate.



Leaving the Pufuri gate was exciting , Now I was only a few hours away from where i would call home for the next week and begin the search for the elusive elapid.
To be continued...


After many hours driving south west from the gate I set-up camp and headed straight out for some road cruising as night had fallen.

The very first snake came within minutes - Bitis caudalis d.o.r and shortly after another B.caudalis dor. That would be the end of the caudalis that
evening as from observations it appears that these vipers in this particular area are active at dusk and up to 2hrs afterwards and thats it. However on night 3

this theory was defied when I observed a specimen at 1:30am crossing the road (more on this later) , Very shocked to see this...Anyway here the pic of the 1st herp

of the trip.

B.caudalis DOR.


Seeing a dead adder of this stature is annoying , I swear blue-blind (Shouting the F word repetedly whilst phoning mates back home reporting on the finds).

The next snake of the night was this Long Tailed Garter Snake. These are the largest of all the garters. I was informed they can be confused for medium cobras

crossing roads when they get full size. Amazing animals..

Elapsoidea sundevalli longicauda



The rest of the evening produced 3 more longicauda (dor) all of similar size.

My goal the next day was to head back to the exact gps locations of the longicauda findings and view the habitat.

I kept the largest longicauda d.o.r and took a few snaps.





For those of you who don't know , These animals begin life fully banded yellow black , heres a pic of last years finding so you get the idea.
The question I've been asking myself is when do they loose these bands ? more on this later...






Here are the exact location habitat shots of the longicauda







The remainder of the days photographs...

These''mini ayres rock'' features where plentiful


Inhabitants of the rock !





This particular habitat was lovely to walk around in , lots of tortoises
around.







At one point further up north I drove round a corner and the view just opened up!
Miles and miles of untouched habitat , looks a bit aussie this pic?



And the true Icon of this area , the Baobab or 'upside deown tree'



I really enjoy these trees , just look at the size of the trunk they almost
appear to be made of melting rubber , very odd texture. Note the birds nests , must be prime realestate..




That concludes day 3 then , hope you guys enjoy and get a good idea of the area , to be continued...

Sorry , I did not realise the pictures were not viewing *fixed*

Superb report and pics Andrew

Such a shame about the caudalis

Al

Beautiful photos Andrew! That is a very beautiful landscape. Thank you for sharing.
Curtis

I really enjoyed the landscape photos especially. Thanks for the quick trip into your neck of the woods! Lions humping? Elephants? You gotta be kidding me!!!

Absolutely beautiful photos, in both of youre topics. The landscapes are really stunning there mate.
Hope we will see some more of youre photos in future.

Sami

I really like a post like this one


Thanks for sharing Andrew.