🙂 Inviting and Warm Lodge. Fantastic leopard cubs sighting!
🙁 Eveything to love
We flew in via Nelspruit, Mpululanga International Airport – we were delighted to be met by a black impala – our first ever sighting of one! Very vool!
We collected our hire car and then drove 45mins to Hazyview Spar to collect our groceries. From there it was a quick 45min drive to the Sabi Sands Gate where we entered.
We were delighted to find sleeping lions on our way to Umkumbe Lodge.
Umkumbe Lodge is one of the more reasonably priced lodges within Sabi sands. This is probably because their traversing area is relatively small in comparison to their neighbours at Mala Mala and Sabi Sabi…but the same game is seen! We received a warm welcome and were shown to our lovely tented camp accommodation on a dry river bed. The surrounding gardens are beautiful. We enjoyed a refreshing outdoor shower feeling very happy to be back in the bush!
We enjoyed a quick and delicious lunch before heading out on our afternoon game drive. We had paid a very reasonable fee for a private game vehicle which provided the space we require for a comfortable photographic safari – well worth the money as there is nothing worse than sitting in the middle of two people that you do not know with huge lenses bumping into everyone!
Our guide was the lovely Elzane … she was knowledgeable and enthusiastic and is just starting out on her career which she is passionate about … and it shows – she will go far and we really enjoyed her company. The highlight was our little chameleon. When we got back to camp it was time for dinner which was served around the boma. We invited Elzane to enjoy us and had a lovely evening around the fire. We spotted some scorpions in the surrounding trees.
We were up bright and early at 5am the next morning for our game drive. Highly exciting – we found the two leopard cubs playing in a tree 🙂 Ntsumi, their Mother he was out hunting. The Ntsumi female was born in the Sabi Sabi camps in 2016 and her Mother is the Little Bush Female and he Father is Makhotoni. Prior to these cubs she raised the Golonyi female to successful independence in 2021 having had two unsuccessful litters prior to that. Elzanne had seen her with both cubs on the previous afternoon game drive. A hyena was skulking below which made it quite nerve racking as they played catch and darted to the edges of thin branches right at the top of the tree! We spent a very special hour with them.
We enjoyed our coffee break while Elzanne explained some of the flora to us. We found a busy dung beetle. Caitlyn sat in the Spotter’s chair and directed us 🙂
On our way back we were delighted to find some rhino at their ‘spa’, some ellies and a thirsty leopard tortoise.
We enjoyed brunch and some retail therapy and a nice chat with the owner, who we promised we’d send some some photos to. We declined the Bush Walk as we were eager to get to Kruger to begin our adventure there! We left feeling very happy with our stay. Highly recommended.
