April20
Ideal_Rock
- Joined
- Aug 1, 2008
- Messages
- 3,372
We went to Kruger Park for three days this past weekend with a couple friends. It was one of the coolest experiences! If you are ever traveling in or near South Africa, you must try to plan a trip to go! We saw four of the big five- lion, rhino, buffalo, elephant. We did not get to see a leopard. We also saw baboons, hippos, crocodiles, impalas, wild boar, wildebeast, jackyl, hyena, zebra, monitor lizard, some other little monkey and others I am sure I am leaving out.
We entered the park about midway up the western border, at the Orpen Gate. We stayed at the Tamboti Tent camp just past that gate the first night. We booked a Safari tent, which was affordable and quite comfortable (wood floors, beds, fridge, etc). The first afternoon, we traveled east towards the Satara camp (about the midway point east/west across the park) and then drove back west towards our camp. The animals really come out at sunset! We got back to the camp just in time to NOT be locked out of the main gate. They are very strict. If you do not make it into the camp by the time they lock the gate, they can opt not to let you enter. We spent the evening grilling steaks and chicken and hanging out. It was such a nice evening!
On Saturday, we got up at the crack of dawn (410 am), much to everyone's displeasure and headed out the gate at 445. It was worth it! Within 5km of leaving the camp, we saw four lions. Three headed towards us thru a field and eventually ended up on the road and a fourth walked from the opposite direction down the road and joined them. SO.COOL!!! We traveled northeastern on a gravel road thru the park and eventually made our way to the Letaba camp, which is about 2/3 of the way north into the park and towards the more eastern side. It's elephant country for sure. We saw tons and tons of them, including babies! We had a safari tent again and I must say, it was MUCH nicer. It was basically insect proof, which the first tent WAS NOT. The camp is huge- it has an elephant museum, shops, movie theater and best of all... a pool! It's late spring here and it was hot. The pool was needed!!
We grilled out (or as the SA's call it, braii'd) again and had hyenas visit just outside the fence by our tent. I couldn't get good pics at night, but saw another on the road the next day. We left at the crack of dawn again. Getting up that early is not easy. We decided to head back south and go much further south and exit the Kruger gate, which is about 1/3 up into the park. We decided to go this far south as I thought we would stand a better chance of seeing more lions. While still in the more northern section, we saw a hyena on the road, tons of giraffes and a rhino ran across the road in front of us. He was only about 10 meters away- thankful we weren't closer at the time as he was about the size of the car!! I was right about the lions too- after we were further south than we had been previously, we saw five. Two on the side of the road and three from a distance of 200 meters or so. We also saw a huge herd of elephants at a watering hole. It was an amazing sight, I must say.
If we were to do it again, we would go for more like 5 days and drive less each day. We spent so long each day in the car, we were toast by late afternoon. We would also stay in camps away from main gates (Letaba was, Tamboti was not) and stay at two different ones for a couple nights each. It's really too much to move camp every day.
I took an obscene amount of photos. I'll post a few of the best.
We entered the park about midway up the western border, at the Orpen Gate. We stayed at the Tamboti Tent camp just past that gate the first night. We booked a Safari tent, which was affordable and quite comfortable (wood floors, beds, fridge, etc). The first afternoon, we traveled east towards the Satara camp (about the midway point east/west across the park) and then drove back west towards our camp. The animals really come out at sunset! We got back to the camp just in time to NOT be locked out of the main gate. They are very strict. If you do not make it into the camp by the time they lock the gate, they can opt not to let you enter. We spent the evening grilling steaks and chicken and hanging out. It was such a nice evening!
On Saturday, we got up at the crack of dawn (410 am), much to everyone's displeasure and headed out the gate at 445. It was worth it! Within 5km of leaving the camp, we saw four lions. Three headed towards us thru a field and eventually ended up on the road and a fourth walked from the opposite direction down the road and joined them. SO.COOL!!! We traveled northeastern on a gravel road thru the park and eventually made our way to the Letaba camp, which is about 2/3 of the way north into the park and towards the more eastern side. It's elephant country for sure. We saw tons and tons of them, including babies! We had a safari tent again and I must say, it was MUCH nicer. It was basically insect proof, which the first tent WAS NOT. The camp is huge- it has an elephant museum, shops, movie theater and best of all... a pool! It's late spring here and it was hot. The pool was needed!!
We grilled out (or as the SA's call it, braii'd) again and had hyenas visit just outside the fence by our tent. I couldn't get good pics at night, but saw another on the road the next day. We left at the crack of dawn again. Getting up that early is not easy. We decided to head back south and go much further south and exit the Kruger gate, which is about 1/3 up into the park. We decided to go this far south as I thought we would stand a better chance of seeing more lions. While still in the more northern section, we saw a hyena on the road, tons of giraffes and a rhino ran across the road in front of us. He was only about 10 meters away- thankful we weren't closer at the time as he was about the size of the car!! I was right about the lions too- after we were further south than we had been previously, we saw five. Two on the side of the road and three from a distance of 200 meters or so. We also saw a huge herd of elephants at a watering hole. It was an amazing sight, I must say.
If we were to do it again, we would go for more like 5 days and drive less each day. We spent so long each day in the car, we were toast by late afternoon. We would also stay in camps away from main gates (Letaba was, Tamboti was not) and stay at two different ones for a couple nights each. It's really too much to move camp every day.
I took an obscene amount of photos. I'll post a few of the best.
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