Kruger: Punda Maria and Pafuri

Russell Cottage: the old police house at Punda Maria 

I have a new favourite place: the far north of the Kruger National Park. Most people think you have to go to the south if you really want to see the big game, but there's something quite magical about the area around Punda Maria for it's here that you will see the beautiful big trees of Africa, large herds of elephant and buffalo and maybe even an elusive leopard.

Male leopard on his morning patrol on the Mahonie Loop

That's just what we were lucky enough to see on a recent visit to the area. The Mahonie Loop is a 28km circular drive from Punda Maria that takes you through some beautiful countryside. I love it, not least because of the amazing trees that are special to that area. 

Trees on the Mahonie Loop taking on their autumnal colours

A young baobab tree with clouds in the background

If you're at Punda Maria, then you simply have to drive the road north to Pafuri, an area where the Luvuvhu River eventually joins up with the mightly Limpopo River. The Luvuvhu is a special place. It's where the National Geographic documentary called The Last Feast of the Crocodiles was filmed. The documentary tells the story of a pool gradually drying up during a terrible drought in 1991. Within the last few years, the Kruger has experienced similarly harsh conditions, but this time the north was spared the worst.

The Luvuvhu River

The Luvuvhu River is the archetypal African river, or at least the kind of river you dream about. It meanders slowly, murkily, muddily towards its rendezvous with the Limpopo. Huge trees tower alongside it where brightly coloured birds flash in the undergrowth. Crocodiles doze on the banks and elephant dung in the road is evidence that this is a life-giving source in this part of the world.

The north of the Kruger is famous for its elephant herds

If you drive the Luvuvhu River from the Pafuri picnic spot towards Crook's Corner you will traverse an area known as the Fever Tree Forest. These trees with their lime-green trunks were once associated with malaria, hence their name, but they are among the most beautiful trees of the African bush.

Fever Tree Forest on the road to Crook's Corner

This is a truly splendid road with many spots where you can pull over and observe the river and its rather wonderful birdlife: White-fronted bee-eaters, Verreaux's Eagle-Owl and the striking Saddle-billed Stork, to name but a few. Just take it slow and easy and soak it all in. 

White-fronted Bee-eater

Saddle-billed Stork

Verreaux's Eagle-owl

TIP: If you really want to experience the Kruger without the crowds, then the north is a must-visit area. The safari tents at Punda Maria are great, not least because they get regular visits from smaller creatures like spotted genets and bushbabies. I can't wait to go back.

Birding: My search for the Pel's fishing owl

On a philosophical level, when I eventually got to see the mythical Pel's fishing owl, it wasn't the sighting of the bird that moved me the most...

Pel's fishing owls like large trees next to slow-moving rivers

The Pel's is a curious bird: a large ginger owl that makes its living by catching fish in pools on slow-moving rivers in the far north-eastern part of South Africa, parts of Botswana and Zimbabwe. It's one of the Big Six of the Kruger, large charismatic birds that you fancifully can tick off like the Big Five of the mammal world. The other birds on the list are the martial eagle, the ground hornbill, the lappet-faced vulture, kori bustard and saddle-billed stork, all relatively easily spotted, unlike the Pel's. 

Tree magnificence

My first real effort at finding the owl was while on the Nyalaland wilderness trail near Punda Maria in the Kruger. Our guide took us to Crook's Corner (on the border of South Africa, Zimbabwe and Mozambique) where he said he'd seen the owl roosting close to the Limpopo River. Notwithstanding the fact that we were in buffalo country, he led us through chest-high grass to a clearing. All we found was a single ginger feather lying on the forest floor.

My next concerted effort was on yet another wilderness trail close to the Olifants River, also in the Kruger. Once again, the guides said they knew where a pair of owls roosted, but due to rather dramatic floods, the large trees in the area had been damaged, and there were hippos to worry about. Nevertheless, my ever-patient travel companions indulged me as we scoured the river bank. Everyone was rather relieved when we gave up that particular search and headed up the hill to more open country.

Then, most curious of all, a Pel's fishing owl turned up in Cape Town and in the garden of a friend where it had been feasting on her goldfish. Along with the rest of the birding fraternity, I duly spent a night on her veranda waiting for the owl to put in a return appearance, but by then it had moved off to the Spanish ambassador's garden in another part of the city, and shortly after was never to be seen again. The mystery of how it got to be so far out of its range was never solved.

The viewing deck at Guma Lagoon Camp in Botswana

Fourth time unlucky was in Botswana on the panhandle. We were staying at Guma Lagoon Camp and went out of an afternoon for the shortest of boat rides to an island the owl was said to inhabit. Nada.

Finally, looking in the right place

And then, finally, my luck changed. The exact location cannot be shared but this was my best chance yet. A first attempt at finding the owl one evening was to no avail, but I returned alone early the next morning. My expectations weren't high, given my record to date, until suddenly I saw a flash of orange as the owl was flushed from its daytime perch. It settled some distance away but I was able to get a good view through my binoculars.

Not the best picture ever but it didn't matter...

It was a bit too far for any decent photographs and I didn't want to spoil the moment fussing with my camera. Instead, I sat down on a fallen log to take it all in. I was surrounded by a kind of Pel's cathedral of riverine forest. All I could hear was the sound of my own breathing as a trail of ants picked their way through the leaf litter at my feet. I realised then that this search had not been so much about the owl, but about the all the places it had brought me to and the deep friendships that went with that. It was about those incredible trees that towered over me and the clean water the owl relied on. It was about the fragility of it all. I felt both uniquely privileged, and more than a little bereft that my hunt was finally over.

Still playing hard to get