Sabi Sands Private Game Reserve
The Sabi Sands is a private game reserve located within the Greater Kruger National Park, which means that this is adjacent to Kruger National Park without any fenced borders. I stayed at a lodge called Notten's Bush Camp, and this is one of the last family bush camps in that area as most of them have become commercialized. The focus of this lodge was that all the guest were treated like family. The rooms were amazing and each of them had a unique view of an open field where you could see any wildlife that did appear.
Each day was exactly the same in terms of schedule which started with a 5 AM wake up. The staff would come to my door and knock and wait for a response to ensure I was awake. After some coffee and tea, we started our morning game drive at 5:45am. We would drive around different parts of the park, sometimes going to the southern edge of game reserve others times to the east etc. The weather in the morning was great since it was still cool from the night and didn’t quite heat up just yet. The morning game drive concluded at 9AM where we went directly to breakfast when we got back to camp. Breakfast was served with a fruit platter, smoked salmon plate and made to order eggs. As a man of habit, I ordered an omelet every morning with bacon, mushroom, cheese and spinach and it was delicious.
After breakfast, the camp offered a bush walk. The bush refers to a natural and undeveloped area. So in this case the bush was just the national park area where all the animals lived. The bush walk was about an hour long and a guide would take us for a walk outside of camp. He would show and explain to us an additional perspective that wasn't offered in the game drives. They would show us the animal tracks, the sociology of how and where the animals would poop, the different trees/food sources for different animals, and the impacts that the animals have in their surroundings.
After the bush walk, there would be a bit of down time, finally time to relax. I would typically spend this time by the pool as jumping in was really refreshing especially on a hot day. Each day the temperature got to about 100 degrees so jumping in the pool really quick was an easy way to cool off. This was the time that I spent some time to go through some of the photos that I took that morning and the previous night. I didn’t spend too much time on my electronic devices but just enough to edit and reviewed a couple of the top photos of the day.
At 2:30 pm was lunch, lunch included a cheese platter, and main course. The main course was always changing but the cheese platter was offered at every lunch. Of all the lunches, I think the chicken curry pot pie was probably my favorite.
After lunch, we had about 30-45 min before we headed off for our afternoon game drive at 4pm where we explored the reserve again. Sometimes we would go back to old spots that had a sighting otherwise we would go off and try to find some animals ourselves. In the Sabi Sands, there are only a couple of lodges in total and they had a system where if any of the guides found any of the big 5 animals (lion, leopard, buffalo, elephant, or rhino) they would call in their location so that everyone got a chance to see them. To limit the exposure of the jeeps and disturbing the animals, they limited the number of jeeps on a single animal at one time. This ensured that the animals were not overcrowded and everyone got a good view of the animal as well. At sunset we were treated to a sundowner which is just a fancy way of saying time to stop for a drink! Two of the nights that I was there we just found an open area to pull the jeep over then hop out stretch our legs and have a drink! The drink of choice for me this trip was gin and tonic. It was just so refreshing after a ride in the sun. The other two nights I was there the staff did something super special and put on a “fancy” sundowner. They brought the whole camp out and had a bbq and bonfire. In addition to our normal sunset drinks, they would bbq some ribs, chicken, and sausage just as an appetizer before we headed back to camp for dinner.
After the sundowner we would head back to camp, returning around 7pm. We had just enough time to get cleaned up for dinner which started at 7:45 pm. Dinner was a 4 course meal with soup, starter, main course and dessert. My favorite meal was definitely the pork belly, it was cooked to perfection and the skin was nice and crunchy. There was no way that I went hungry at all during this trip! Half of the time I really wasn’t even hungry by the time the next meal rolled around.
On the first day, we drove around the south and west side of the reserve. It was a quiet morning as we didn’t see too many big 5 animals. We saw plenty of zebras, impalas and giraffes. It wasn’t about half way through the morning that we heard another ranger spotted a leopard eating a baby buffalo right on the side of the road, which then she dragged it into the bush so she could hide it and save it for later. After this sighting, we saw two hyenas just finishing eating a baby elephant and thought we were there to take their meal away so they dragged the baby elephant under some trees for cover.
For the afternoon game drive, again it took us time to find any animals other than the impalas and some zebras so we stopped early for our sundowner. It was a good thing that we stopped early because as we were packing up to head back to camp, a guide and radioed in that they found two male lions sleeping. So of course we had to stop by to see them on the way back to camp.
The next day, I was speaking to our guide and he said he was gonna find us a leopard this morning and what do you know… within 5 minutes of us leaving the camp we spotted one. This was a different one than the one we saw the day before. We followed it for a bit but then ultimately lost it while she was going through some thick bush. After a great start to the morning, we saw rhinos for the second time but this time there were 3 of them. I "told" the rhinos to line up for the family photos and they actually did it and I caught this amazing photo.
In the afternoon, we found a pride of 6 lions ranging from 2-4 years old both female and male. It looked like they were told by their mom to stay put while she was off somewhere. We also saw 3 older male buffalos. These buffalos used to be a part of a bigger herd but decided to go off on their own since they didn’t want to migrate anymore and so the 3 of them just hung around the same areas not wanting to be bothered. The buffalo and lion sighting are important for what happened the next day.
The next day my wake up call was a bit more unique. Not only was I told I needed to get up and get ready fo the morning game drive but there were elephants right outside my patio! I have never shot out of bed so fast to check them out! As we left for our morning drive a guide told us about an impala in a tree. Leopards typically drag their kills into a tree so that they can enjoy their meal in peace away from all other animals. When we got there we could see the impala but no trace of the leopard. The leopard had most likely gone for a drink of water knowing that her meal would be safe high up in the tree. Just as we turned around to leave, guess who's come back to finish her meal! The leopard! We stayed for a bit longer while we watched her climb up the tree and enjoy her breakfast.
Later that morning, we saw a pride of 14 lions! There were 4 baby cubs (under a year old), 4 lionesses (adult female lion) and the 6 older lion cubs that we saw yesterday. This was a great view of the whole pride in one location. As we watched some of the interactions between the cubs and moms, one of the lionesses came over to our jeep to “relieve” herself and got pretty close to the jeep! (Check out the photo link to see the video of how close the lioness gets to our heep) As we wrapped up that morning, we came across the cutest baby elephants playing around next to their mom. Seeing this much game in one drive left me super excited for my last drive at Nottens Bush Camp later that afternoon.
The afternoon drive kicked off really strong as we saw another leopard (sister to the one that we saw yesterday) trying to hunt for her kill. You could see her trying to sneak up on a group of impalas. After trying for 30 min, she was finally spotted by they impala and she failed her hunting attempt. Better luck next time!
As we left the leopard, one of the other guests mentioned that since we saw the buffalo yesterday at 6:01 pm according to her photos, we should find some rhinos within the next 45 minutes so that we can claim that we’ve seen the big 5 within 24 hours. Our guide accepted the challenge and immediately drove to where the rhinos usually hung out but unfortunately they weren’t there. He tried one more spot a bit further away and what do you know… we pulled into the field spotting the Rhinos at 5:58pm with a couple of minutes to spare!
What a way to end my trip to Nottens Bush Camp in the Sabi Sands Game reserve. Its pretty unique and awesome to say that we were able to see the big 5 within 24 hours.
With my first safari now complete, I was ready to take a breif break form the animals and check out one of the Seven Natural Wonders of the World.
Read my exhilarating trip to Victoria Falls HERE
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