Another Hot Day in the African Bush – Marloth Park

(Marloth Park, January 15, 2018)

Today was another hot day in the African bush. Despite the cloud cover, the heat consumed us and we only managed short periods of time outside before dipping in our man-made waterhole or retreating inside for a drink of water. Marloth Park is very unforgiving at this time of year with her heat. It never seems to let up.

The first thing we noticed when we arrived was how much the water level of the Crocodile River had dropped since our visit the previous year in January 2017. The river bed is completely dry in some places from the Marloth Park fence line. Luckily there are still a few deep pools here and there for the Hippo to wallow in and the Elephants and other animals to drink. We have not seen many crocodiles this year, despite the name of the river. I guess that’s because they have gone to where the water is and that definitely is not in this section of the Crocodile River.

On our first day relaxing out in the middle of the bush we were greeted by a Warthog. He casually trotted up to our chairs, shoving the dry dirt with his snout as Warthogs do. We eyed each other out and silently agreed it best to keep our distance and personal space while enjoying each other’s company, and so we sat there enjoying the bush together. I have a rather soft spot for Warthog, they are after all my favorite wild animal.

The Great Sausage Tree

We went for sundowners that evening and ended up going on a proper bushwhacking walk through grass taller than me right up to the fence that separates us from the Crocodile River. Now the fence is pretty easy to reach nearly all over Marloth Park but we decided to explore a hidden section covered in lush vegetation. We ended up under a huge tree. I looked up to see sausage type pods hanging off of it. My sister graciously pointed out that it was a sausage tree!

I was obviously ecstatically excited and spent the next few minutes jumping up and down trying to get one of those intriguing sausage pods off, but despite the help of my very tall friend we never succeeded. I could have got one if I had climbed over the fence, but that was not really safe, considering what could have been in the deep pool below the sausage tree.

Get 6 bottles of SPAIS Chilli sauce for R360. Available in South Africa only for now. Sorry international folk, we’ll be coming to your shores soon.