Kruger Safari - Welcome to Africa!

Mike and I landed in Johannesburg, South Africa on June 11^th after a 14 hour flight from Sydney. A quick overnighter in a local airport hotel had us back at the airport, departing for Nelspruit, Kruger National Park at the crack of dawn the following day.

Kruger is one of South Africa’s national symbols and was a ‘must see’ wildlife destination for us. In an area the size of Wales, enough elephants wander around to populate a major city, giraffes nibble on acacia trees, hippos wallow in the rivers and leopards prowl through the night.

We arranged our safari with Rhino Plains Camp. Plains Camp is wonderful and truly the way tented camping should be. There are just four guest tents beautifully decorated in traditional pioneer safari style. Mike and I were lucky enough to have the entire place to ourselves for the duration of our stay – score!

 

A typical day at Plains starts at 6:00am with tea and rusks, followed by a 4 hour ‘walk’ in the bush, where there is an opportunity to track animals on foot with armed rangers - this includes lions, needless to say a little unsettling but adds to the adrenaline!

While Bernard, our guide, showed us many animals tracks, and even taught us how to tell how recent the tracks were, it proved challenging to find many animals on foot as the noise of walking through the bush often sent them in the other direction.  The photos of their bums running away did not make the blog! 

We were lucky enough to come across a herd of elephants, enjoying an afternoon snack while watching a hippo cooling off in the water. We also spotted a white rhino, which have terrible eyesight but a great sense of scent as soon as the wind changed he was off.  The key to safari we determined was being in the right place at the right time!

In the afternoons we used the safari truck - the additional height and ability to cover more distance significantly improved our odds of seeing the wildlife - and what luck we had! In addition to many of the 'common game' animals, we were able to cross all of the "Big 5" - buffalo, elephant, leopard, lion and rhino - off the list!

Each evening we had 'sundowners' by watering holes, and because we were the only guests in camp were able to take some night drives as well.  Driving back to camp with the African sun setting was truly memorable.

We were fortunate enough to spot three different leopards, and the highlight was spotting two lions, less than a metre from the track we were driving down, mating!  When lions are mating, they do so up to 100 times a day in the first few days - quite short sessions but great refractory periods. We were able to see the lions mate three times before we decided to give them some privacy.

On our last night we moved to the Rhino Post Safari Lodge, which is a sister camp to the Rhino Plains. While less rustic, Rhino Post had beautiful chalets and communal areas, all with views overlooking a dry sand riverbed. 

From the balcony of our chalet we were able to see many animals crossing the riverbed.  It was spectacular watching a herd of elephants cross in the early afternoon.

All in all we had a terrific three days on safari – what a wonderful way to start our 3 month African adventure!