11 January. Our first day in Kruger National Park, South Africa’s great game park, started with an am game drive. The driver picked us up at 5 am and we proceeded with another couple from another lodge to a private game reserve that is adjacent to Kruger. We joined another couple there and climbed into the open viewing vehicle. Being familiar with safari in Kenya, the thing we were not expecting was to be COLD! We bundled up with blankets and coffee and hit the park in search of … The folks on the drive remarked that on their evening game drive the night before, their lodge had sent them off with vodka & tonic fixings as well as tea time acoutrements. The lodges here are amazing and famous for their over-the-top hospitality. Almost immediately, we saw wildabeast, huge herds of water buffalo, and fairly quickly, a lion pair. Impala, kudu and a plethora of small deer-like creatures abound…simply millions of them everywhere. Your head never stops spinning, searching, for the elusive carnivors. After seeing the two young lions first thing, we didn’t see any more this am. We were back at the lodge by 10 for a wonderful breakfast, a few hands of Canasta, then we packed up and headed for Kruger National Park proper! We entered Orpen Gate, on the western side of the park. We were immediately overwhelmed by the wildlife everywhere around us. We saw herds of every type of hooved animal imaginable, tons of adorably ornery, impossible to domesticate zebra, groupings of the ever elegant, magnificently lanky giraffe, so many elephants of all shapes and sizes, birds of unimaginable colors, and monkeys with an ilk for exhibitionism 😊. We stopped at Skukuza Lodge to poke around and check out South Africa’s version of a national park campsite. Both Skukuza and Lower Sabie were amazing and I can’t wait to stay there next time. We ended up flying down gravel roads, running a bit late to make sure we made it out of the Melalane Gate by 6:30 pm when the park closes for day visitors. So every animal known to man was on their way to cocktail hour as well. We drove through herds of everything, hundreds of zebra and giraffe on the move, never ending trains of elephants crossing the road, and agitated baby elephants separated from mom! We made it out Melalane Gate at 6:30 on the nose and within minutes were settled at our charming home for the next three days: Hsusha Hsusha.
It is hard to believe that you could spend days driving around in the dust at 20 km an hour, searching for leopard, lion, cheetah, rhino, hippo, elephant, buffalo, baboons, etc., and never get tired of it. The days just fly by, the landscape everchanging and beautiful. During breakfast our first morning, one of the guests was giving us advice on getting “sightings” and laughingly said that there would come a time when you thought, “oh, just another freaking elephant.” It’s true. There are millions! But I never tire of seeing them, especially watching them gently steer their babies around with their long trunks. I am not a bird watcher, but the huge variety of stunning birds is incredible. Lara and I had a couple of favorite spots for hippo sightings. There are two restaurants across the river, the Crocodile River, that serves as the southern border of Kruger. From both The Deck Restaurant and from the deck of the Pestana Kruger Lodge, hippo sightings are a sure thing. We had been watching a couple of hippos from the deck, when one of them let out a HUGE snort, and in unison, about 10 huge hippos stood up out of the water! They are an amazing sight! There were lots of leopard sightings while we were there, but we missed them. They are pretty elusive, except for the one that was siting by a road sign. Very “right time, right place” dependent here. Our time at Kruger was too short. Had an amazing meal at Lower Sabie lodge, where you sit on the river and watch the animal kingdom stroll by. One lovely evening with friends, we ate at The Deck Restaurant and were entertained by 2 dozen elephants playing in the river.
Kruger is a wonderfully run park. They artfully balance people’s enjoyment and the delivery of an amazing experience, while maintaining the very serious undercurrent that this is a big and important project: To display and thereby protect the wildlife that is the South African national heritage. One feels honored to be part of the project. On another note, the nearby towns of White River and Nelspruit are beautiful, beautiful cities. White River is a very charming old world city, which wears its Dutch origins on its sleeve. The food and wine have been extremely good and also very, very reasonable.
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