SANParks.org Forums

For a kid R1.50 was a fortune. You could get 2 Wilson's toffees for 1c in 1979

Oh foxy this is all so interesting - I too have a book on Kruger by C.S. Stokes dating back to 1942 and the prices are even cheaper than those you quote -

I quote - (it is somewhat lengthy but so interesting that I did not wish to leave anything out)

To gain entry to the park, a permit is necessary. The relative charge is one pound in respect of each motor vehicle with not more than ten passengers, while an admission fee of five pounds applies to each caravan and trailer. The entrance of buses, vans and motor cycles is prohibited. Additional to the admission levy, an entrance charge of five shillings is made for each person, over the number of four and sixteen years of age or more travelling in any single car or other vehicle.

At a cost of two pounds a season ticket is obtainable at all of the park's entrance gates (((((((Now we know where they got the idea for the Wildcard)))))) The purchaser is entitled repeatedly to enter any open part of the sanctuary during the twelve months to which the ticket applies.

Holders of the Kruger Park's Life Fellowship, for which a contribution of twenty-five pounds is made to the funds of the National Parks Board of Trustees, have free entry to all reserves, when open, controlled by the Board. They also receive, free of charge, certain tickets covering accommodation at rest huts.

Rest Camps - Rest camps are established at Skukuza, Pretorius Kop, Crocodile Bridge, Letaba, Lower Sabi, Malelane, Olifants River causeway, Olifants Gorge, Punda Maria, Satara and Shingwedzi (at a point midway between Letaba and Punda Maria). Further rest hut accommodation is provided at Malopene and Rabelais entrance gates, primarily for those who arrive at these points too late in the day to enable them to reach an interior camp within half an hour after sunset. At Pafuri, visitors are quartered under canvas, and at some of the larger camps cottage tents are used when sightseers in especially large numbers cause an overflow.

Applicaton for rest hut accommodation is made on the spot to whoever is in charge of the camp. The great majority of the huts are of concrete or brick, with thatched roofs, and the furnishing consists of riempie or other bedsteads, with mattresses, a table, benches or chairs, a washstand and basin and a hurricane lamp. Bedding is obtainable on hire at rest camps, except at Olifants River Causeway, Olifants Gorge and Pafuri, where food is likewise not supplied. The chare is two shillings and sixpence for the first night for three blankets, two sheets, and two pillows and one shilling and sixpence for the same bedding for each subsequent night and ten shillings if the requirement is for a week. Winter nights are are frequently cold and visitors should carry rugs and overcoats. A torch will be found useful and further needs will be towels and a mirror such not being part of the hut equipment.

The rest hut fee is three shillings and sixpence nightly for eqach adult and two shillings for each visitor under sixteen. There is a reduction if accommodation is booked for a week at least. The charge for tent "housing" is less than that applying to the huts. The rate for the visitor sleeping within the camp, but not desiring rest hut or tent accommodation is one shilling and sixpence a night (children under sixteen, ninepence each) and the payment covers the servic of native attendants and the use of water and fires. Sightseers are not permitted to "outspan" and spend the night other than at a rest camp.

Stores are established at Skukuza, Pretorius Kop, Letaba, Punda Maria and Satara, and at them certain everyday commodities and even lesser luxuries are purchasable - the supplies offered including a variety of tinned meats, tea, coffee, sugar, jams, bread, butter, cheese, eggs, condensed milk, alt, potatoes, onions, chocolates and sweets generally, cold drinks, cigarettes, candles and soap. At these stores, and at the rest camps at Crocodile Bridge, Lower Sabi, Malelane and Shingwedzi, meals are obtainable, the charges approximating to those ruling generally at South African country hotels. Cutlery and cooking utensils are procurable from stores.

Entrances - the park is entered at Crocodile Bridge, reached from Komatipoort; Malelane, reached from Barberton and Nelspruit; Pretorius Kop reached from White River and Graskop; Rabelais, reached from Graskop and Acornhoek; Malopene, reached from Leydsdorp and Gravelotte and Punda Maria, reached from Louis Trichardt.

A pontoon is in operation at Crocodile Bridge rest camp, for the crossing of the Crocodile River. The charge for transporting a car by it is three shillings, and the levy for a lorry or vehicle with a trailer is six shillings, but the pont is closed to lorries which, with their loads, exceed three tons in weight, and also to other vehicles likely to cause damage to it.

Concrete causeways have been built across some watercourses. The rivers thus bridged are the Crocodile, Letaba, Olifants and Sand, also the Sabi which is crossed by causeway at Skukuza and Lower Sabi. These passageways are too narrow to permit of cars passing one another on them, and a speed of ten miles an hour must not be exceeded on the causeways.

In normal times the management of the South African Railways makes attractive provision for travel to and in the park. Tours by special train are widely popular. They are on all-inclusive lines, and provide for two or three days of car travel in the sanctuary, camp-fire concerts and other exhilirating and novel enjoyments. In addition, weekend tours and party and individual exursions, in all cases including meals and bedding on trains, park entrance charges, sightseeing and other motor journeys as desired, and accommodation and allied requirements generally, are expertly arranged.


I know it was a long read - but also very interesting!

Not too long for me. Thanks.

Very interesting, really enjoyed reading it. Thanks for sharing this with us all

I wonder what the staff (if still alive) of those days would think of what we have to-day ......

Wild card
Night drives
Day drives
WalkingTrails
4 x 4 trails
etc etc

One of my fondest memories of the 80s was caravanning at Skukuza, standing around a humongous fire build out of logs. When it was our turn the fire operator would spade a large amount of coals into a wheelbarrow for us to take back to the fireplace - instant braai (barbecue). Now you pay a premium for hard, long-burning wood.

That very interesting



I wonder how many were bought? And if the holders were still alive if the agreement would be honoured?

Thank you Penny for those recollections. Just the right Monday medicine.
Those were days when tourists were intrepid explorers in their own small way and if they were not sucessfull in popularizing tourism the National Park may have floundered.

Only read this post now. Any more "old time memories" Penny?

What wonderful memories! I can remember we mostly stayed in Letaba. The camp was fenced with the normal diamond mesh. Staff went from hut to hut to light the hurricane lamps and also spray your hut for mosquitoes with one of those funny pump action insecticide contraptions. (don't know what it's called).

The camp shop also closed between 14:00 to 16:00 if i can remember correctly and then also opened only to 18:00. Bad luck if you were held up by a road block, you just had to go without until the shop opens the next day. Long life milk was sold in a glass bottle and wasn't so tasty as the long life you can purchse these days. Only basic items were available from the camp shops.

At picnic spots they had a fire going all day to provide hot water in a big kettle. I am not to sure if it was at Balule (was too young to really take notice of the routes ) there was a warden that accomponied visitors down to the river to look at the hippos and crocs. We had to walk down to the river through thick bush and underneath trees.

I have the same memory of a guard escorting us down to the waters edge....all very exciting for a young lad in the early 70;s.

I have no idea where it was. I have been told that it was at Hippo Pools near Croc Bridge....i went there and recognised nothing!!!!

Those were the days

My earliest memory was when my Dads secretary married Henry Wolhuter (son of the famous knife lion killer Harry) Henry was then Section Ranger at Pretoriuskop and we visited them at the Rangers house just outside P Kop gate where it still is today. On the lawn was a pram with a sleeping baby in it (It was none other than world renowned Wild life film maker Kim Wolhuter. ) I can remember the skin of the famous lion and the knife hanging on the wall of the house long before it went to the still to be built Stevenson Hamilton Library. Henry told me the story how his dad was knocked off his horse and dragged by the lion and then stabbing it to death with his knife and then spending a painful night in the tree while the 2nd lion returned after an unsuccessful chase of his horse. Being a little 7 year old boy from JHB I was enthralled and Henry could see that so when my dad came down to do audits at Hectorspruit I would be dropped off for the july school holidays at the Wolhuters and I spent 3 glorious weeks walking in the bush with "a real Ranger" as I used to boast to my envious School mates. I had a wonderful childhood in the wilds of Kruger and Sabi Sands and I was extremely lucky to have been given the same opportunity with my own sons who spent many weeks in the bush with me with the next generation of Rangers. Its something they will never forget and something I was very glad I could give them

Very special memories, PB!!

It was near the hippo pools now , but a few hundred metres further back up the road ,
when you pass some big trees , this is where you used to park , you will see the road is wider here .

Is there a reason why we all posed with our arms straight down the sides in those days? Was there a ban on spontaneity?
I also have pic's, taken at a seaside resort, obviously not part of the parks, where every dude stands like a Samurai soldier - straight up & down! What were we thinking

Those were the days ....the good old days......