South Africa: Cape Town and Durban

Mave

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Monday evening I'm leaving to South Africa (transfer in Dubai, so flight time is 6h30m + 9h45m, already downloaded enough movies to last that amount of time multiple times) for three weeks.

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We'll first be staying in Cape Town for a few days and then we'll take a local flight (oh god) to Durban. There we'll visit 4 different lodges and we'll hopefully spot a ton of animals on all the safaris we're going to do.

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It's winter right now in SA, but that means that almost all animals have babies right now. Pretty hyped for this holiday.

Internet access will be extremely limited (if any at all in Durban) so don't expect much activity. I'll catch up when I'm back though :biggrin:
 
Still waiting for proper internet to share some pictures...

Today we went out on the river infested with crocodiles and hippos, the guide had some interesting (but horrifying) stories to tell about Johannesburg (where he was originally from). His entire family migrated to the countryside because they were tired of getting robbed in broad daylight. Apparently a lot of South Aftricans also move to Australia in order to escape the crime.
Guide also showed me a CCTV video of a Mercedes left on the street getting completely stripped in less than 8 hours. (Talking interior, engine, wheels, even the glass).
Yeah never in my lifetime am gonna visit Joburg...
 
Finally saw lions (3 females during last night’s evening drive) and elephants (2 males during this morning’s drive).
Only animal missing from the big 5 is the leopard, I really hope we at least catch a blimpse of one. (we also didn’t get to see one in Namibia last year)
 
Oh man today can’t get topped. We saw a lion kill (only a warthog but still), 4 cheetahs (2 times 2), a leopard, rhinos, a male lion being chased by buffalos (a rare sight) and female lions chilling in the grass.
Some pics coming tomorrow as we moved to a new lodge and while the internet is still slow as shit, it’s a bit better.
 
Some pictures below, all were taken with a Nikon D750 and a Tamron 150-600mm lens. More coming (soon). These are all un-edited except from a 1920x1080 resize.

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This morning we saw a female lion going after a leopard and her 6 month old cub. The lion probably just wanted to scare them away to steal the prey they just caught. Was pretty crazy to witness.

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First attempt at star/milky way photography. Sadly the white bits are part of our room's roof. We only had a little space on our balcony to position the camera. (couldn't move down to the ground because it wasn't safe to walk around alone at night since our lodge wasn't fenced of from the animals (so lions, cheetahs, leopards, hyenas could stumble upon you).

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And how do you not get eaten?
The lions are used to safari vehicles since they were cubs, they ignored us completely (maybe apart from walking this close). We saw a few lions hunt with us driving 20m behind them and even that didn’t bother them. Most important thing was to not make unexpected sounds or stand up.
 
Welcome home! That star photo is pretty neat, maybe crop out the white building parts?
 
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