Wild Places and Open Spaces

Day 28 -March 22

Well the time had come. We packed up early and started the long drive out of Kruger into Johannesburg. We were lucky to see some animals on the way out, and silently we said our goodbyes to them and the park.

The drive to the airport was long – about 7 hours or so. The GPS once again konked out around the same point as last time (obviously the maps had not been updated in it because it had us driving in fields) and we got turned around once again. How frustrating. The GPS had been absolutely useless for our entire trip and we were annoyed that we had this expense. Anyways, this time we did not end up on any back roads that looked ‘iffy’ which made it less stressful.

We got gas at the same petrol stop as we had on the way in – it was right off the highway and very much like our stations on the highways that have fast food, restrooms, petrol all in one. By the time we got to the airport, we had to get petrol once more, as the vehicle has to be full upon return. We missed the airport petrol station, and ended up in a parking garage…luckily two nice attendants showed us how to get turned around, and we managed to find our way. The petrol attendant had difficulty with our credit card, and took our card to find another machine. It worked with the new machine. However, once at the airport, because of Kristin’s paranoia (sometimes comes in handy, more often is just annoying) we called Mastercard to verify that no weird charges had been laid since our credit card had been out of our sight for a few minutes. Nothing weird as of yet, and we were glad to have the peace of mind. This was the only call we made on our rental cel phone – unlike the GPS, we were glad to have the phone for any emergencies that may have arisen (but we were lucky there weren’t any!!).

When we went to check our luggage, we were told that our carry on was too heavy. We did some rearranging, and returned – all was well. We were glad to be free of our large bags, and began our wait at the airport. There were lots of stores and places to eat and the time passed quickly. Our flight was an overnight one, scheduled to leave at 8:55pm. We were quite disappointed when we got on the plane: it was older and had less leg room than the one we had flown previously with South African Airways. However, the most disappointing thing was that they did not have the screen at your seat where you could watch whatever movie you wanted, or track the flight path of the plane, etc. (Crazy what we get used to, isn’t it? So spoiled.) Anyways, that would be fine if you were expecting it, but we weren’t. We found out that there were problems with the regular plane at the last minute, so this one was being used for our flight. We left late, about 9:20pm, and had a relatively uneventful flight. We both were even able to get a bit of sleep during the 9086km journey.

Arrival at Heathrow was at at 6:25am and it was COLD. We retrieved our baggage, and found the lockers where we could stow our luggage for the day. We had initially decided to do this with one of our bags so we wouldn’t have to lug it to the hotel, but once we found out the price and saw the lineup, we decided against it. This ended up being the right decision, because the luggage was not a bother at all.

We made our way like experts to the underground to get our day pass. It felt almost like home, since we now knew the ins and outs of the metro, and we were able to get where we needed to go with no problem. Hopped on the tube, and made our way to Hatton Cross – just one stop from Heathrow. Our hotel, Jury’s Inn, was a short walk down the road, albeit a cold jaunt!

The hotel was great – a nice room where we freshened up before heading out. They let us check in early with no additional cost. We initially had figured we’d need to get a couple hours of sleep before hitting the town, but since we slept a bit on the flight, we felt okay.

We decided to finish touring the Natural History Museum, and we are glad we did. Although the first time we were there we were less than impressed, the rest of the museum we saw was pretty impressive. The building itself is pretty amazing in itself. We also went to the V & A Museum, which is right across the street from the natural history museum. From here we went to Covent Garden to walk around again, and found somewhere to eat where Jim got his last ‘fush and chups’. Being Saturday, the Covent Garden area was packed, and the underground stations and tube were overflowing as well. Not sure we’d be able to deal with all the people here on a regular basis….cannot imagine it during the ‘busy season’. By the time dark rolled in (6:15pm) we were ‘done’ – we had grabbed some nibblies from Mark’s and Spencer and were back in the hotel. Unfortunately, wifi was not free at the hotel, and their stand alone computers were not very efficient….we sent a quick note home and checked on our flight to Toronto for tomorrow.

Last sleep of our trip. Sad.

Day 27 – March 21

See pics here.

AM Drive

Left Satara this morning to go to Lower Sabie Rest Camp. This will be our last night in Kruger, as tomorrow we leave South Africa and arrive in London. We cannot believe how fast this trip has gone by!

Well, we had a very lucky morning. The drive from Satara to Lower Sabie was quite beautiful. Lots of open savannah to view many species through. We came upon a lookout that was high upon a cliff, but with our binoculars we were able to spot a couple of rhinos! This was a great find, as we had not yet seen these beasts in Kruger yet! It was amazing how well such immense animals can blend into their surroundings so well. Without our binoculars, it was very difficult to pick them out in the landscape.

Feeling on top of the world now that we had seen all the animals that we had seen with the guides while in Dulini (except the leopard, which we had actually seen on our own when leaving Sabi Sands), we continued on south. Not much further down the road, we came upon quite the sight – three enormous rhinos crossing the road in front of us! What a gift! They took their time, offering us many photo opportunities as they sauntered by.

We stopped at a rest area along the road, bought a couple of coffees and quiche, and sat down at a picnic table. We had also brought out a bag of food from our car. Jim noticed that there were some cute vervet monkeys hanging around, and he got up and went to the car to get the camera. No sooner did he get up, a monkey came over to the picnic table and jumped up on the seat. It didn’t really surprise Kristin, and she was ready to deter him from grabbing Jim’s coffee that it went for. However, little did Kristin know, that the monkey was actually ‘faking her out‘ by pretending to go for the coffee cup. In a matter of milliseconds, before Kristin realized what was happening, he was into our bag with a quick swipe of his hand, had grabbed a banana and scooted away. He sat in a tree, happily peeling then eating his banana. Little rascal.

Closer to the camp, we came upon more chacma baboons – although these were a fairly common sight, this time we came across a mother baboon nursing her baby in her arms. It was amazing to watch another primate look so human-like.

By the time we got to Lower Sabie rest camp, we only had a couple of hours before we’d go out again for our afternoon drive. Our accommodation was again different from the others we had previously – this one was a hut with a bedroom/fridge/air conditioner (really nice), but it was attached to 3 others. Unfortunately we were on the far side, so every time we went from our car to our hut, we had to walk through the camp areas of other people. Oh well. The shared bathrooms were fine – clean, and all we required. We had a couple of things to accomplish – 1) take all our luggage out of the car and repack it appropriate for the flight and London and 2) clean the car. Having driven on dirt and rock tracks for over a week, our light blue Chevy Cruise was now brown. We had seen a car wash at the first camp we stayed at, but had not seen one since – it didn’t look like we were going to be able to get the car washed before we returned it. Oh well. Kristin took a bucket of water (a cooking pot) and cloth and went to work on the inside of the car – a film of brown dirt had settled on everything. Not bad – better than what it was. We just hoped we wouldn’t be charged for returning a ‘dirty’ car.

Our afternoon drive had all the usual suspects, plus a couple new birds (there always are!). It never gets old seeing big animals – you never know where or what will be your next encounter!

The evening had a sad tone to it – neither of us could believe that our time in Africa was nearly over. We talked about how much we would miss our daily dose of animal sightings, and how we hoped we would be able to travel here again someday.

Day 26 – March 20 See pics here AM Drive Left Letaba rest camp at 5:30am, and are driving to Satara rest camp to spend the night. We took another route south, driving through Olifants again to get gasoline (petrol if you ... [Continue reading this entry]

Day 25 – March 19 See pics here. Up bright and early again. This morning was not very eventful – for some reason all the animals seemed to be hiding, or at least staying out of our sight. Forgot to mention that ... [Continue reading this entry]

Day 24 - Monday March 18 See pics here. AM Drive We packed up our stuff at Mopani and were out of there by 6:30am. Heading to Letaba, though not taking a direct route such that we would have the chance to ... [Continue reading this entry]

Day 23 - Morning Self Drive See pics here. Got up early (5am) so that we'd be first out the camp gate when it opened at 5:30am. At this time of the year, all camps close their gates at 6pm, and ... [Continue reading this entry]