GOOD OL' KNP OCT 25th to 31st 2010

Ah, it's nice to be back here - it feels like home.  Spent 3 nights at Letaba and a further 3 at Satara.  (In caravan). Had a blow out on one of the caravan tyres on the way down.  Tyre was wrecked but fortunately, no other vehicle damage.  Battled like crazy to get the wheel nuts off.  At one stage, I stood on the spanner (that SHOULD have done the trick!) but to no avail:  spanner jumped the nut, spun madly and clobbered me on my shin!! (BIG OUCH).  Got 2 new tyres fitted at HiQ in Lydenburg.  Wonderfully helpful crowd but can't say much for the dude from Toyota (whose premises HiQ shares) - this man was rude and threw his toys because we parked where HiQ told us to and that turned out to be where this Toyota man wanted to pull a big bus through.  Didn't ask us to move, just threw toys!!!  I responded in kind!! (Not pretty).  Upshot is, in the end he indicated we should stay where we were (with a rude gesture, I might add) and nearly reversed into us.  My feeling is that that move was deliberate as he did not need to come back so far!  Anyway, I complained bitterly (and vociferously) to HiQ management who extracted an apology from the man (think he's a service technician). 
Definitely a blow out trip as when we were travelling home we were behind a truck and he had a blow out right in front of us - huge "bang" - gave me the fright of my life but Luis responded calmy and dodged all the bits of flying rubber.  Trucker came to a dignified stop in the emergency lane so: no harm done! 
Back to more important things:  KNP is dry with a lot of burning having been carried out.  Still, the animals look healthy.  This was a lion (7 sightings) and bird (lot's of normally elusive chaps photo'd for posterity) trip.
Met an awesome couple - Gordon and Sharon Day from Savanna Bush Lodge outside Pretoria. 
Similar interests and habits.
Below are some random shots of the birds we managed to capture on camera:

Pearl Spotted Owlet

Paradise Fly Catcher

Orange Breasted Bush Shrike

Pygmy KingFisher

Violet Backed Starling

PuffBack Shrike

Burchell's Coucal

For those of you who want the mammals:

And, last but not least, one of the sunsets that Satara is so famous for:

For the greater part the days were overcast but, oh boy, when the sun did make it's appearance,  it was rather hot to say the least.
Till the next trip ......