South Africa - Just Cats!

Africa is blessed with an unrivalled abundance of mammals and other wildlife. Huge herds of game still roam vast national parks which they share with an equally impressive array of birds, reptiles and other fauna and flora. However, there is one family of animals without which no visit to Africa would be complete: the cats. The ‘Big Cats’, and their smaller relatives, hold a special appeal for many of us. Not only are they beautiful, sleek and powerful animals, but they are also elusive and superb masters of camouflage, able to shun the limelight and only reveal themselves to the fortunate few. Cats are always a challenge to find, but knowing where to go is half the battle, and although nothing is guaranteed in the world of wildlife-watching, this exciting tour has been specially designed with cats in mind and offers the very best opportunity of seeing Africa’s cats in the wild.

Our tour begins with a flight to Johannesburg, where we meet our guide and begin the long drive to the world famous Kruger National Park. We will break the journey with a night at the Blyde River Canyon, a spectacular cleft in the mountains and the third largest canyon in the world. The endangered Cape Vulture is occasionally seen here, soaring high above the rocky escarpments, whilst other wildlife to look out for includes Verreaux’s Eagle, Lanner Falcon, Greater Double-collared Sunbird and the delightful Rock Hyrax, an unlikely cousin of the Elephant!

Completing our drive to the Kruger National Park, we enter this world famous reserve at the Phabeni Gate in the south and drive on to Lower Sabie, where we stay for two nights. Here begins our quest for wild cats. The southern region of the park is fairly densely vegetated, with two large river systems and numerous rocky outcrops. We will concentrate our activities along the Sabi River, where the permanent water attracts large numbers of Impala. These form the prey-base for the predators of the area and this is one of the top spots in the Kruger for finding the ever-elusive Leopard.

We next drive north to the Satara region, in the central Kruger, where we stay for a further two nights. Satara holds the highest density of Lions in the national park, due to the large numbers of Blue Wildebeest and Plains Zebra attracted here by the lush grazing and open country. Leopards also occur in the area, as do Cheetah, Spotted Hyena and African Wild Dog. We will spend our time here looking for these magnificent animals, and will undoubtedly encounter other species such as Elephant, Cape Buffalo, Common Waterbuck, Greater Kudu and Southern Giraffe as well as an incredible array of savannah birds. An evening/night drive from the camp will provide our best chance of finding one or two of the smaller, and more elusive, cat species, notably African Wildcat and Serval.

We now leave Kruger, via the Orpen Gate, and drive into the adjacent Sabi Sand Game Reserve. This 65,000-hectare private reserve, which is part of the Greater Kruger National Park, offers some of the finest predator-viewing in the world, and the chances of seeing Lions, Leopards and Cheetahs simply cannot get any higher! The reserve was established as far back as the 1960s and, by the early 1980s, the very first private lodges were in operation. This long history of conservation, the large size of the reserve, and the ideal habitat it offers are some of the factors making Sabi Sand so special when it comes to cat-viewing. It was in this reserve that a few individual Leopards first became habituated to safari vehicles, a slow process that took over 10 years, and the result of this hard work is daily close-up encounters with these beautiful creatures. Cheetahs are also seen regularly and we hope that time and patience will be rewarded with sightings of the smaller cat species such as Serval.

We will spend four nights in the reserve, staying at two different lodges. This will give us both ample time in the field, as well as time to relax in the beautiful surroundings of our accommodation. Furthermore, all game drives in Sabi Sand are conducted in open vehicles, the perfect vantage place from which to view the reserve’s abundant mammals, birds and other wildlife, and ideal for those keen on photography too. Sadly, after four nights at Sabi Sand and, we hope, a variety of memorable encounters with cats and other wildlife, we must leave the peace and tranquillity of the ‘African Bush’ for the hustle and bustle of Johannesburg from where we catch our return flight home.