Kruger National Park

June 14-17

I was picked up bright 'n early from my Jo'burg backpackers where Pastor, my guide, and I set off for Kruger. We traveled along the Panorama route, offering spectacular views of the Drakensberg Mountain Range.

We made it to the Timbavari Safari Lodge which sits about 30km outside the Oren gate to Kruger. The lodge was run by three keen animal lovers- a Rhodesian, a Brit, and a Kiwi. The housekeeping and kitchen staff were all locals from the tiny remote village across the road. I had a very comfortable safari hut all to myself with a fantastic stone shower, all overlooking the bush. Since we arrived late-afternoon, the lodge was empty with all of the guest off in the park. I wandered through a bush trail nearby and had my first animals encounters- an Impala and some kind of monkey. I enjoyed my first safari sunset making my way back toward the lodge where the bar was opening up next to the pool.

A delicious feast of local foods was served at 7:30, followed by a lively game of '30 seconds' (a verbal version of cherades... so you can imagine how much I loved it!!!) with some tourist from Jo'burg, an Italian couple and a Dutch couple.

They start the show early in the world of game driving. I was up at 5am to get some coffee in my system before we head to the gate for the 6am opening. We switched into our open-aired safari truck and headed off for our morning drive as the sun came up. Pastor navigated through the chilly park with three ladies in the back: myself, a British girl on a 3 week holiday for her 30th birthday, and an Aussie who was studying political science in Jo'burg.

My first spot was a pair of jackals, which are monogamous dog-like animals. The park is home to thousands of impalas, of which we saw plenty. I saw over 50 animals that day, but these are the ones I can remember off the top of my head (not to worry, I kept an official list):

giraffe (my favourite!), zebra, african elephant, kudu, wildebeast, bush baby, guinea fowl, african fish eagle, white rhino, hippos, nile crocodile, warthog, stork, and spotted hyena, to name a few....

We had an unreal fry-up next to a watering hole with zebra and warthog looking on. Eggs, bacon, fried tomatoes, toast, baked beans, and coffee. Awesome!!

We drove for 12 hours that day, covering over 400km of Kruger (the size of Isreal!). Once the lights go out we were using spotlights to spot the animals in the dark- mostly just looking for cat eyes to catch the light.

I enjoyed delicious camp out food throughout the day, and spent the night in a tent all by myself, with no more than a 10ft fence and an armed guard between me and the wild. Hyenas sung me to sleep as I curled up at the early hour of 8:30pm.

The tour finished off with a final morning drive before the long 5 hour drive back to Johannesburg.

I'm having trouble uploading photos, as I'm writing from a remote lodge in Zambia. Hopefully I'll be able to post some of the incredible animal shots soon!!