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Hi Everyone.

Well our trip report is not ready yet but in the meantime we just wanted to say we had an amazing time on our three and a half weeks of safari in Kruger and greater Kruger.

Loved all four camps that we stayed in, a great adventure. We were always one of the first at the gate in the mornings and although we tried to avoid it, we often did not get back till six at night. We would head back towards camp and then end up detouring somewhere for lunch or breakfast, as you would all know...'lets just check out this road/loop before we go back'. Next thing you know its five pm.

We were very impressed with the camps, including all the restaurants and shops, and found everything to be quite well organised. Unlike some comments I have read we had no negatives with staff or food, although some places seemed to be better than others, we simply just loved everything. Bought quite a bit a ceramic stuff in the shops and the staff were very helpful, taking time to wrap things up and look after us, staff in the restaurants also good, its amazing how far a smile, a thank you and a bit of conversation goes.

As for the wildlife, we had some amazing sightings, you sure do see at lot more in 2 weeks rather than the five days we had last visit. We are trying to now get our photos [3000+] organised so once thats done and I have worked out the sizing thingy we will start our report. Maybe someone could advise here, should we just do one long report or is it best to maybe break it up into camps [4] or something like that ?? Do not want to bore people too much !!

Finally just must add our favorite sightings.... finding a lioness early morning on the S41 road then turning to see two gorgeous males laying in the grass nearby, had these two all to ourselves as they strolled along the road for half an hour before anyone else turned up. A cheetah crossing the H9 road in front of us then climbing on to the road signpost to pose for us for maybe 5 minutes, a dream sighting that I still cannot believe, lucky took about 100 photos ! Two incredible wild dog sightings on the one drive down the H1-1 early one morning, plus lots of fab hyena, bird and elephant [and tinyphant] sightings.

Met lots of wonderful and helpful people, including a few forumites, Ark and a couple of names who I may have wrong, maybe vvg..? and maybe Luislang? Another couple from Cape Town who we enjoyed a dinner with in the Satara restuarant. Also ended up staying between 2 other forumites in our bungalow at Olifants. Wow what a place that was, overlooking the river in a 'best river view' bungalow, simply stunning. We have stayed at a few great places in the world but you know that simple room on the cliff at Olifants, watching the elephants, giraffe and antelope in the river below will go down as one of the best. Same with the bungalow at Satara, enjoying breakfast on the verandah while eles, giraffe, wildebeest, zebra and impala strolled past on their way to the waterhole for drink, what could be better.

Now help please, we thought this longer trip may satisfy our KNP and wildlife cravings, instead we are already talking about when the day will come that we may get to return.
Guess its out of our control now, we are hooked.

Thanks everyone for your comments.

I did start downloading the photos to our computer today and of course you can guess what happened.
The space is running out...
It seems I simply have too many photos of African animals in there. So now going through the process of moving files, deleting, backing up etc then will start over again.

Chirinda thanks for the advice, I will have a read up first.

MM yes our pups were well looked after thank you, but very excited of course to see us and come home.

Hi Luislang... nice to hear from you, yes we are still laughing at the crazy amount of time we spent looking at that 'dead buck in a tree'. , and how many times did we repeat those words to every car that approached . I can tell you it was getting harder to say the words correctly in the end ! Anyway I guess the leopard got the last laugh, we knew deep down inside he would not come back in daylight. Hope you had some good sightings when you got Skukuza, especially those wild dogs.

Thanks for the prognosis Billy. And yes a lot does come down to attitude, we treat everyone how we would like to be treated, and generally we got the same in return.

Well back to photo sorting now.

Hi again Wildebeeste

Lovely to hear you are back too and had such a great time, it sounds like all the family enjoyed themselves on their first trip which is just wonderful. So when you say 'planning our next trip' does that include other family members again, are they hooked too ?

We also had a family cottage at Mopani, with a water view, because it was all that was available at the time so even though there was only two of us we loved it, and were quite impressed with the facilities. We know the guesthouse you mean at Satara, we were just three rooms down from there, along the perimeter, and wow what a location, viewing the animals from the verandah, fantastic.

Now we are so jealous there has been two kills at Satara since we were there, how fantastic for you to be there. Was the the one you saw the wildebeeste ?, sounds like it. You would know then about the one at the waterhole too, a buffalo kill.

If you are still interested in catching up sometime to share tales, let us know and we can PM our email address.

Well here we go, our first trip report, let’s hope we don’t bore anyone too much !

As usual we got a very early start from the airport. Flying into JHB from Australia we gain 8 hours so it’s always easy for us to get a good sleep at the airport hotel. We arrive about midnight our time, then we wake up about 3am local time refreshed and raring to go.
Enjoyed a hearty breakfast at Mugg and Bean in the airport terminal then collected our car and by 5.30am and we were on our way....yaayyy. After 12 months of planning and studying Kruger road maps it is so exciting to head out of the city and know we will be in the park by lunch time. We stocked up with supplies for our 2 week stay at Malelane Spar then floated on air through the gate around lunchtime. Our first drive through the park gave us sightings of giraffe, rhino and elephant, and we arrived at Skukuza tired but happy. We loved the location of our bungalow overlooking the river, and spent the early evening relaxing, soaking in the views and meeting the locals before falling in to bed by 8pm.

Now lets try a photo ...


kruger12-3 001 (2) by thesandmans2012, on Flickr

Hey it worked
A couple more from day 1


kruger12-3 003 (2) by thesandmans2012, on Flickr



kruger12-3 005 (2) by thesandmans2012, on Flickr

The next morning we were up bright and early for our first drive and were well rewarded with a great sighting almost as soon as we left the gate
These characters had us laughing as they ran between the cars. The one carrying the impala, or I should say what was left it, seemed to be teasing the others.
The photos are pretty poor quality, the combination of not being camera ready for such a quick sighting and the fact that they were taken through the windscreen. .


IMG_4817 (2) by thesandmans2012, on Flickr


IMG_4784 (2) by thesandmans2012, on Flickr

more of these great characters




IMG_4811 by thesandmans2012, on Flickr


IMG_4813 by thesandmans2012, on Flickr

and two more !


IMG_4808 by thesandmans2012, on Flickr


IMG_4789 by thesandmans2012, on Flickr

Drove down the Doispane Road area during the morning but not much luck here today, the main sighting was a baboon troop which we do always enjoy anyway.

The rest of the day was fairly quiet although we did spend some quality time with a breeding elephant herd on the S114. Saw lots of birdies, including a couple of eagles plus the usual LBRs and hornbills. We had a brief glimpse of a rhino somewhere that we cannot recall, and as it walked away realised there was a young one hidden in the grass, oh well maybe we will get a better look another day .....

test batch (3) by thesandmans2012, on Flickr

View from Skukuza bungalow


test batch (4) by thesandmans2012, on Flickr


test batch (2) by thesandmans2012, on Flickr

Bubs in the grass


IMG_4902 by thesandmans2012, on Flickr

This big girl was keeping an eye on us, and we soon found out why.




test batch (8) by thesandmans2012, on Flickr


test batch (10) by thesandmans2012, on Flickr


test batch (11) by thesandmans2012, on Flickr


test batch (9) by thesandmans2012, on Flickr

You would have all seen this but it never ceases to amaze me the amount of damage done


test batch (5) by thesandmans2012, on Flickr

Martial eagle ??


test batch (6) by thesandmans2012, on Flickr

Two nice sightings at the end of the day while returning to Skukuza.
It sure was a hyena day for us





test batch (15) by thesandmans2012, on Flickr




Southern White Faced Scops owl if I am correct ??


test batch (14) by thesandmans2012, on Flickr

We decided on waking today that we would head down the main Lower Sabie road in the hope that big cats would be lounging somewhere along the route, well I am sure they were but not in our line of vision. Instead we found lots of birds, including a far off eagle that we could not identify.

It was not to be cats today but we had more than enough great sightings to keep us happy. We stopped at Lower Sabie camp for a bowl of cornflakes, exciting I know , but not before checking out who was at Sunset Dam this morning. All the usual favourites and I am sure the same kingfisher that was there the previous year.


Kruger 12 (2) by thesandmans2012, on Flickr





Kruger 12 (7) by thesandmans2012, on Flickr

Kruger 12 (5) by thesandmans2012, on Flickr


Kruger 12 (6) by thesandmans2012, on Flickr

More sightings in the area somewhere

Kruger 12 (9) by thesandmans2012, on Flickr


Kruger 12 (11) by thesandmans2012, on Flickr


Kruger 12 (10) by thesandmans2012, on Flickr