Kruger Safari Day 1
For the last 5 days I have been on a safari in Kruger park and I’ve taken about 400 pictures/videos in that time. I’ll start at the beginning, this may take a while.
My safari was not within the national park, but in a couple different game reserves bordering the park on it’s Western edge. The only difference between the park and the reserves is one is govt run, the others privately owned and managed. There are no fences and the wildlife is free to move about to wherever it wants. The reason I chose a private reserve safari instead of the park was A, no mobs of other tourists around, and B, me and my small group would have 2 professional guides taking us around for the time period. I also chose a camping safari instead of going to one of the lodges, since the price tag for these is very high (by camping I was able to stay in the park twice as long for the same $$$).
My 4 night/5 day safari started with me getting up at 4:00 in the morning for the bus pickup taking me to the reserve. (after it went to Joburg to pick up the rest of my group, why is my hostel always the first pickup location!?) It’s about a 6 hour drive to the park from here, which is in the far East of South Africa, bordering Mozambique. That drive time was spent sleeping, or trying to anyway.
Once we arrived there we stopped at a bush pub just outside the reserve to meetup with out guides and have lunch. The rest of my group were, remarkably, all Norwegians! Two separate groups of them, all together we were 8 + the 2 guides.
After lunch we drove into the reserve and to the camp, I wasn’t really expecting much from this but since it’s through the reserve the whole way it’s essentially just a viewing drive that gets you where you’re going. We saw impala pretty much straight away, the novelty of that wore off by the evening though, there’s lots of impala around.
Then we came across a large herd of buffalo crossing the road, the first “big 5” sighting. These guys are quite different looking than the North American “buffalo”.(the term “big 5” was invented by the hunters originally as the 5 most dangerous animals to hunt, now it’s basically just a marketing term for the tourism industry. the big 5 are: Lion, Elephant, Rhino, Buffalo and Leopard.)
After that, when we were getting pretty close to the camp we suddenly rounded a corner and there were a group of elephants. Females with young, we startled them as much as they startled us and one of the females was trumpeting and being aggressive towards us. Needless to say we drove off pretty quickly.
We soon arrived at camp, already very happy about already seeing 2 of the big five on the afternoon of day 1. Camp was large, very nice tents on wooden platforms off the ground. Solar power was the only power except for the gas heating the water for the showers. Nice spot.
Next on the agenda was the sundown/night drive. Starting about an hour and a half before sunset, stopping for sundowner drinks, and concluding with a 2 hour drive after dark. Lots more impala were around, and then just before we stopped for drinks we saw another elephant. This one was a male by himself, and much more placid than the earlier group.
The last part of the day was the night drive. Essentially driving around in the very cold night looking for animals. One guide driving, the other sitting on the lookout seat on front of the landrover with a spot light, shining it from side to side looking for the animals that are only active (or more active) at night. Top of the list being the cats, and I don’t mean household pets. First sighting was a Caracal, a small wildcat similar to the Lynx and apparently very rare to see. The the best moment of the already awesome day, nearing the end of the drive we saw a Lion. A solitary male Lion, who walked along side the vehicle a little, about 5 meters away, then stopped to look at us before walking off and disappearing into the bush. Taking pictures after dark is next to impossible in these circumstances, I tried my luck with videos. (I can’t embed the videos from youtube here or it messes up my formating so just click the link)
Tags: South Africa, Travel
Adam
Adam,
These are excellent photos. Thanks for all the history about your events too! You looked like you are having a good time! Sara.