Kruger National Park

4th January
We packed up and headed to the airport! We were on our way to Nelspruit Airport! An hour or so later we arrived at this great airport where we waited for a lifetime for Kyle and Liam to sort out our hired car. This is Africa. The airport itself was quite small, but it was like a big Lapa! It had a thatched roof and looked nothing like an airport.
We finally got into our big Kombi van and headed off to a massive supermarket in Malelane where we got supplies. And then to the liquor store where we got more essential supplies. On the way we saw some roadkill which was a snake flying up in the air from the vehicle in front of us! I was not impressed.
The gate that we entered was Crocodile Bridge and then we immediately saw cheetah, lion, wildebeest, zebra, giraffe, elephant, springbok…we couldn’t believe how lucky we were! And we weren’t even at our campsite yet! We ended up having to bolt to our campsite because it was getting late and the gates to the site were going to close.
Lower Sabie was our first camp and was very big. They had a Mugg and Bean chain restaurant there which overlooked the Sabie river – here you could see water buffalo and hippos. It was incredibly hot. The first night we had a braai and to my dismay, there was a snake outside our room on our hut. We also went scorpion hunting with the blue light torch Kyle had. It was fascinating as they were invisible in the dark without the blue light torch, but illuminated neon blue when it was on them. Shane was particularly freaked out by them!
That night we had a braai and enjoyed each other’s company. Lots of laughs, Amarillo and bourbon and coke.

5th January
We got up bright and early for our first game drive! 4.30am we were out of the camp and on our way. The first picnic spot we stopped at we had muesli bars and tea! It was nice to get out and stretch, but you had to be careful of any wandering baboons who might come and steal your

food. We had the van packed with eggs, bacon and bread, and stopped at the next picnic stop where we hired a scottel which is basically a gas cooker with a wok on it where you can cook your food. It was so amazing seeing all the animals, and it was great to have so many pairs of eyes looking out for them. We all saw things that others didn’t see.
After five or so hours of driving, we headed back to the camp where we chilled out for a while. During this drive, we got charged by a horny elephant. A little while later, we had stopped to watch some baboons playing around. We happened to be staring at one - the alpha male - who was very content in playing with himself. What happened next is not appropriate for this diary - but we were both amused and disgusted! The whole van erupted with laughter and funnily enough, the whole audio was caught on Shane's GoPro which we only found out later!

It rained and rained and at one point when we were sitting outside our hut, the power went off. It was incredibly freaky and there was a storm. We couldn’t see anything in front of us, and knowing that wild animals were only a stones throw away from us was very scary. Luckily the power came on fairly quickly after this.

6th January
We got up bright and early to the rain. We had booked in for a morning bush walk but

unfortunately they had to cancel it as it would have been too dangerous in the rain. Since we were already up so early, we went on a game drive instead and as we had already packed up all of our gear we headed off to our next accommodation; Satara.
Five hours later we arrived and unpacked. We hung out for a bit and then the Moloney’s and Kyle and I did another game drive for a while where we saw an elephant with the most gigantic phallus. Being the mature people that we are, Trudi and I took photos with the Hoggard’s camera – close up, and were so proud to show them when we got back to camp.
That night was another chill out, looking for scorpions, cooking on the braai…and Shane deciding that ‘F*** that’ was his new quote to seeing scorpions – it became mine when referring to snakes!

7th January
This morning we got up early (again) and went on

our organised morning drive. This was really cool (except for the annoying Aussies) and we got to see lion and a serval cat. It was nice that we could be driven around and be in the open aired vehicle. Kyle finally got to see his first leopard (and ours) and we were so happy! It was in clear view and then ran away so our photos were not great, but it still counted.
We went for another afternoon drive and then braai in the evening. It was a nice little routine! With our Rooibos tea and rusks it was a real South African experience.

8th January
This morning we packed our bags and headed to

Talamati camp. We were greeted by signs on our doors saying that we had to be careful as baboons often opened them! It freaked us all out a bit.
For our afternoon drive we saw a jackal which was really cool. We went to a lookout which overlooked a river – we could see a crocodile there and later on we saw some lions. They walked right past us so we managed to get some close up photos. Later that night we left the cooking to the boys as we were too scared to go out to the braai! It was very close to the fence line where we could hear baboons barking at each other in the trees.

There was this great watering hole there where lots of animals came to drink – we sat and watched elephants drink from there and they were hilarious. There were two smaller ones and an older one.
We spent a bit of time chilling out at this camp - we would find the animals and birds we had seen on our Kruger books and cross them off. There was often a lot of debate about the certain type of birds we had seen! Our neighbours were seasoned Kruger travellers and helped us identify some birds and the Hoggards had some great yarns with them. We also saw the most amazing Monitor Lizard walk through our part of the camp and it was so cool to see something like this in its natural habitat.

9th January
The next day we went for an early morning walk and to be honest...most of us were terrified. We didn't see anything really, but our guides - Patrick and Believe, did some tracking for us. We saw hippo footprints, leopard, lion...then they tracked a leopard kill which was pretty exciting. They found the stomach contents of an impala and hyena tracks. We had a break and they provided us with some food. We stood on a termite mound to look at the view and it was amazing...until I asked about the fact that it was a termite mound...when Patrick said...yeah...but mostly just black mamba and cobra will live here now. I have never moved so quickly! We walked for about 2 hours and learned about how hippos and water buffalo would hunt you down if they felt threatened - which would have been most of the time! It was such an amazing experience to be so close to nature with no boundaries!

The Leadwood trees (my favourite - they were dead looking and often had amazing birds sitting on them). Some facts - They can live for up to 3000 years; they are really heavy and can sink in water; the bushman used to use it for its long lasting coal; it was also used as toothpaste; it you rub the branches together, they will create a spark.

10th January
We got up early for another game drive but had already packed our bags as we were checking out. We drove from Talamati to Biyamiti and the foliage was very different. It was really hard to see anything but...when we were close to our camp, there were two cars parked, clearly looking at something. We snuck up and asked them what they were looking at - it was a mother leopard and her cub. We could not believe how lucky we were! One of the jeeps moved out of the way so that we could have a closer look which was so nice of them. We admired the two of them for a long time - other vehicles came and went as well. The mother was asleep under the tree and the cub was running around and playing. So grateful to have witnessed

that!

Biyamiti was a small Bushfelt camp which had its fair share of monkeys. It was a little sad as they were so used to humans there and I saw one even eating some rubbish. I tried to move it away but the monkey wasn't having a bar of it. It was incredibly hot here! We really struggled with the heat and I didn't get much sleep at all - even with Kyle checking for snakes every night!
We had the mystery of the coke bottle that the Hoggards had bought - they had the bottle but there was no coke in it - no one had drunken it either. Turns out that it had been rattling around in the boot of our van and it was dripping down out of the van. Luckily it didn't seep through to our bags.

Today we did another game drive and finally saw a rhino!! It was so exciting for us to see one, and for the Hoggard's and Moloney's to see their first one. Now we had seen the Big Five. It was such a great feeling and also so sad to think that the rhino are almost extinct because humans are so awful. We saw a lot of army men around on our drives in this area, who are on the look out for poachers.

A BBQ that night was a nice way to end our time in Kruger and the next morning we set off for the gate to head back to the airport.

11th January

On our way to Malelane gate, we could not believe it. Rhino were in abundance and we saw 10 of them! From seeing only one the day before, in our whole time at Kruger, to see 10 more in a space of an hour or so was like winning the lotto. At first, I was at the back of the van with Trudi, and we saw one on our left. At the time, we thought everyone was talking about the same rhino, until it started to walk towards us so told Kyle he had to move the van - turns out they had seen another one in front of us! Luckily for us, rhinos have notoriously bad eye-sight and often mistake trees and rocks for something threatening so charge at them.

Exiting the park we stopped on the bridge we saw a giant kingfisher and a herd of elephants washing in the river, and right next to the baby elephant was a crocodile! After admiring our last bit of Kruger, we made our way to the airport where we dropped off the car. We checked in and then had something to eat.

After we had gone through security, and were waiting for the flight, I couldn't find my phone. I emptied my whole bag and couldn't find it. Kyle also searched and couldn't find it. So I asked if I could go back into the terminal (luckily security is so relaxed there) and went to the security centre. They were very helpful and got me to talk about where I last saw it etc. They called on people to go and look around the terminal in areas that I had been. I went back through security and had another look in my bag - Trudi and Carmen had also looked through it. Since I couldn't find it again, an airport worker came and got me so that I could pass on details - so that if they found it they could send it to my next place. It was becoming a whole airport security thing! One more time through security (they were just waving me through at this point) and I found it in the lining of my bag. So then! I had to go back through to the main terminal to tell them I had found it. I was very embarrassed but also quite lucky. And I felt less dumb as three other people had searched my bag and not found it either.

12th January

A short flight and we were back in Johannesburg. We checked into our hotel and then had a meal in the hotel restaurant. Kyle and I had great meals, but the other lucked out - probably because they ordered schnitzel.
The next morning everyone but Kyle had breakfast at the hotel (it was delish) and then headed to Soweto for a tour. It was so amazing to see all of the sights. We also saw Nelson Mandela's residences and his birthplace. Soweto was only half of what we expected - a lot of squatters and camps but also million rand homes.

That afternoon Kyle and I had some food and met up with Kyle's cousin Chantel who was nice enough to come to the hotel to meet us. It was lovely to catch up with family one last time before we headed home!

That night the six of us went to Monte Casino. The other four did their own thing there while Kyle and I met up with Geoffrey, Hylton and Mark. We had a nice dinner at a Greek place and reminisced about Kruger. It was such a nice way to end our time in South Africa.