The Kruger National Park region is one of Africa’s premier gameviewing areas along with being one of the most famous wildlife parks in the world. Established in 1898 by Paul Kruger, some claim that Kruger has the wildest variety of animals of any park in Africa. Home to the “big five” – lion, leopard, elephant, buffalo and rhino – along with over 130 other species of mammals. A leopard was the only one of the big five never seen by us on other safaris and fingers were crossed that this would be the lucky night.

Our morning charter flight flew us to the Sabi Sand Reserve where open, four-wheel drive vehicles were waiting to drive us to Chitwa Chitwa Private Game Lodge. South Africa was our first experience with open vehicles and ex-Marine and I looked at each other in amazement and questioned Pat. “What would keep the animals from leaping into one and making a meal out of us?” It seems that the vehicle smells mask the human odors and no tourist has ever been munched on yet. Good to know but still…what if I happen to be the first tourist eaten by a lion? Oh well….according to South African gospel, we were not going to be dinner…

charter flight to Sabi Sand Reserve in South Africa 

Sheila ready for game drive on an open Chitwa Chitwa vehicle, South Africa
Sabi Sand Reserve is the birthplace of sustainable wildlife tourism in Southern Africa, and is the oldest of all the private reserves in South Africa. It has always been a wilderness area and although we wouldn’t technically enter Kruger, there are no fences between the national park boundaries. There are 17 different Lodges located within Sabi Sand Reserve and ours was Chitwa Chitwa…View image…. FYI: It is almost impossible to find any lodge in these reserves for under 3,000 (ZAR) South African Rand= $310 U.S. per person per night. They are very expensive and a trip is usually justified as a “once in a lifetime” experience. I know that’s how we looked at it.

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a Chitwa Chitwa individual cottage in Sabi Sand Reserve, South Africa
Just 12 guests are accommodated in individual thatched-roof lodges, rondavels with private bathrooms. The dining room overlooked a waterhole where we could watch animals come to drink besides the twice-daily game drives. Everyone settled in and prepared for the first of many game drives over the next three days in Sabi Sabi Game Reserve.

We set off at dusk n two open vehicles and immediately saw…a leopard drinking from a waterhole with its eyes reflected in the vehicles’ headlights! How lucky could someone be!

a reflective leopard in Sabi Sand Game Reserve, South Africa
The leopard is solitary, nocturnal creative, that usually hunts at night. Most of its time is spent resting and sleeping during the day up in tree branches, underneath rocks or in thickets. We visited Kenya years ago and our rangers bumped around thicket areas for hours on end looking for the elusive leopard to no avail and here was a leopard right before our eyes. I recently discovered (thanks to Wikipedia) that the best location in Africa to see leopards is in the Sabi Sand Private Game Reserve in South Africa. There you go!

Thrilled not only to see a leopard but that any photos came out. For those of you who have never owned anything but digital, you actually had to wait for film to be developed before having an idea what the photographs looked like.

..and so three days of incredible game sightings began…