First of all I would like to thank all of you for the advice and help regarding our trip, roads, camps etc!! I left SA in the 80s as a child and try to come back every 1-2 years. I have been to private game reserves before but Kruger was an unbelievable experience – cannot comprehend the scale of the park! We stayed two nights in Olifants camp and two nights in Lower Sabie – would have loved to have stayed longer, but St Lucia and the Drakensberg beckoned! We did a guided walk on our first morning in the park.
We landed on the 13th of August and drove N12, N4, Belfast, Dullstroom and Lydenburg to Buffelsvlei Guest Farm (on the R37) for an overnight stop – I highly recommend this citrus farm as a stopover point. The next morning we drove to Phalaborwa via the Abel Erasmus pass:
August 14:
We saw elephants within minutes of entering the park as well as a fair bit of general game. The Letaba river road was beautiful but quiet, and our hired VW Polo received a full suspension work-out on what we found to be the most corrugated road we drove! After arriving at Olifants camp, we observed hippos from our river-view, BBD2V bungalow (number 13). I then made a braai under the stars and posted an expensive data roaming message on the forum! The setting is exquisite – the number one view in Africa!
P1000285 by
GrahamduP, on Flickr
August 15:
We got up at 5am as we were going on a morning walk. It seemed rather mild in temperature until we set off in the open vehicle to our walk starting point – the wind chill at this time of the morning cuts through everything! En route to the starting point, we saw a den of hyenas, complete with lots of little ones, hippos grazing, giraffes, elephants, buffalo, general game, and a pride of lions patrolling near a stream just north of the Bangu waterhole. Apologies for the poor photo of the lions – I had not yet got used to the new Panasonic FZ48 I recently purchased!
P1000227 by
GrahamduP, on Flickr
P1000235 by
GrahamduP, on Flickr
Alarmingly we alighted the vehicle only a few minutes drive from where we had seen the S90 pride of lions. Within a couple of minutes walk we were to be alarmed again though; we walked towards a stream, rounded a verge and stared straight into the eyes of an old female hippo! I took this picture quickly, before our guides Vusi and Eric moved us back as we were only 20 yards away. Fortunately she exited on the other side of the stream. Our guides told us about a situation years earlier when a hippo bull had charged a group of walkers nearby – unfortunately the hippo had to be shot. They found the skull near this small stream and showed us the bullet hole.
P1000239 by
GrahamduP, on Flickr
Apparently elderly hippos can get tired of the river politics of the Olifants and sometimes find a small stream where they can retire away from it all!! We saw black-backed Jackal and some general game on the easy 3-hour walk, but learnt lots about the sights, smells and signs of the bush.
That afternoon we drove the S39 northern section (recommended by mite Cheetah!). We decided this was the most beautiful road we drove – and very interesting too.. Lots of general game, ellies etc. We also saw a crocodile ambush some impala who were nervously drinking from the Timbavati river. The croc jumped out at them, but they escaped; we were too stunned to take a picture unfortunately! The impala made a distressed, guttural sound and although scarred mentally, they were all physically intact!
We drove the H1-4 back which is very open and saw lots of elephants and two rhinos at a different location. These two ellies posed beautifully for us near Ngotso:
P1000280 by
GrahamduP, on Flickr
That night we braaied once again and enjoyed the sounds of the river.
August 16:
Drove the H1-4, H1-3, H1-2 and H4-1 to Lower Sabie. We had good game-viewing initially – massive herds of zebra, buffalo and elephants at Ngotso as well as ostriches nearer Satara. We drove to Sabie river road slowly, hoping to find leopards but only saw impala and this lovely herd of elephants:
P1000318 by
GrahamduP, on Flickr
After visiting sunset dam and admiring crocs, hippos, baboons, kudu and impala, we settled in at Lower Sabie River view tent number 20. A number are still being rebuilt, including number 27 which we had requested.
August 17:
Next morning we set off at 6am and drove the S28 south to Crocodile bridge. Half an hour into our journey we saw a pride of lions right next to the road consisting of two males and two females. It was amazing to find this pride all by ourselves. A few minutes later, one of the females saw a warthog in the distance and set off crawling after it. The other female flanked the warthog. They closed in for about 20 minutes and when they were very close the warthog became alarmed and ran off. The lions did not chase. We took these pics of the male lions and female lions observing the warthog. Alas the warthog was rather obscured so we don’t have great stalking photos – the lions kept low in the grass too! We loved the sight of the lazy males licking their chops and salivating whilst the females attempted to bring in breakfast!
P1000344 by
GrahamduP, on Flickr
P1000347 by
GrahamduP, on Flickr
P1000348 by
GrahamduP, on Flickr
P1000349 by
GrahamduP, on Flickr
P1000351 by
GrahamduP, on Flickr
P1000355 by
GrahamduP, on Flickr
We had breakfast at Crocodile Bridge camp and then the drive back was uneventful on the H4-2. That afternoon we drove on the H10 to Orpen dam and then back again on the S29. We saw two rhino at a location, lots of ellies including a lone baby which was running around aimlessly. A huge herd of buffalo delayed us somewhat on the way back, but then we saw this hyena suckling from its mother as well as other hyena a couple of minutes away. The suckling hyena did not seem bothered by us being three metres away in a car! We saw a cheetah on the S29 although it was behind a rock and the other people there said it had been there for an hour! We only glimpsed its head so won't post the pic!
P1000393 by
GrahamduP, on Flickr
P1000401 by
GrahamduP, on Flickr
P1000403 by
GrahamduP, on Flickr
August 18:
Drove a rather quiet H4-2 again and exited at Crocodile Bridge for an easy but long drive to St Lucia via Swaziland!
We loved the north east during late winter and are considering returning next year instead of December 2013 (Cape Town and garden route). We are thinking of exploring a northern area accessible from Phalaborwa gate, Olifants again and then somewhere different in the south!! Will add more thoughts to this thread as they come and perhaps more pics too.. Right had better run and try to sort out posting pics!
PS ALL of the Kruger staff were amazing and friendly! Thanks to DinkyBird for all of the hep with uploading the pics - Flickr proved much easier than PhotoBucket!
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