March 20, 2014
Spotting the spotted.
The infamous Kruger National Park. This is a special spot for South Africans, and while it took us a year to get here, it was well worth the wait.
Some quick facts about Kruger: it is one of the largest national parks in Africa, it has more species of large mammals than any other African game reserve, it is roughly the same size as Ireland (slightly larger, if the truth be told), and it is an entirely self contained ecosystem. Pretty impressive.
We had the absolute pleasure of being shown the ropes by two locals who hold the Kruger in the highest esteem and have many special memories here. Before I get into the photos, let me first set the context of our trip.
There had been very heavy rains leading up to our visit, which resulted in a lot of water in the park (floods, actually). This meant that the animals didn't need to move around a lot to find a water source (read: minimal activity at watering holes and no real effort to get to said watering holes). That coupled with the stifling summer heat meant that there wasn't a lot of movement in the park and sightings were few and far between.
Given that we planned to visit the park in the summer, we knew the bush would be thick and sightings could be a bit harder as a result. What we hadn't counted on was that with all the rain the bush was really tall...higher than our SUV in a lot of places. We joked several times that if an animal didn't run into the middle of the road, we had no way of seeing it or knowing it was there.
Since we wanted to cover as much of the park as possible, we entered the park through the Phalaborwa gate, stopped for breakfast at Letaba Rest Camp, and then made our way south to Olifants Rest Camp for our first night. From there we travelled further south to Satara Rest Camp for two nights, stopping at Skukuza and Lower Sabie Rest Camps before exiting the park at the southern-most gate of Crocodile Bridge. We also spent plenty of time exploring the back roads and sand roads around each of these places. A thorough first visit, I think!
With all that being said, we had some incredible highlights in our four days in Kruger. Some of these included, in no particular order:
- Spotting all of the "Big 5" in the course of three hours (on our last day!)
- Seeing a leopard in a tree- C's very first Kruger leopard (after multiple visits over the last few years)
- The rewards of self-driving- taking our own time with every single sighting and taking credit for occasionally being in the right place at the right time
- Leaving Joburg in the middle of the night in order to arrive at the park shortly after the gates opened for the day
- Every time we were about to give up after hours of fruitless spotting, an elephant would cross our path. I think Kruger was trying to make sure we would want to come back
Without further rambling, enjoy a few of my favourite shots from our first Kruger trip!
Some quick facts about Kruger: it is one of the largest national parks in Africa, it has more species of large mammals than any other African game reserve, it is roughly the same size as Ireland (slightly larger, if the truth be told), and it is an entirely self contained ecosystem. Pretty impressive.
We had the absolute pleasure of being shown the ropes by two locals who hold the Kruger in the highest esteem and have many special memories here. Before I get into the photos, let me first set the context of our trip.
There had been very heavy rains leading up to our visit, which resulted in a lot of water in the park (floods, actually). This meant that the animals didn't need to move around a lot to find a water source (read: minimal activity at watering holes and no real effort to get to said watering holes). That coupled with the stifling summer heat meant that there wasn't a lot of movement in the park and sightings were few and far between.
Given that we planned to visit the park in the summer, we knew the bush would be thick and sightings could be a bit harder as a result. What we hadn't counted on was that with all the rain the bush was really tall...higher than our SUV in a lot of places. We joked several times that if an animal didn't run into the middle of the road, we had no way of seeing it or knowing it was there.
Since we wanted to cover as much of the park as possible, we entered the park through the Phalaborwa gate, stopped for breakfast at Letaba Rest Camp, and then made our way south to Olifants Rest Camp for our first night. From there we travelled further south to Satara Rest Camp for two nights, stopping at Skukuza and Lower Sabie Rest Camps before exiting the park at the southern-most gate of Crocodile Bridge. We also spent plenty of time exploring the back roads and sand roads around each of these places. A thorough first visit, I think!
With all that being said, we had some incredible highlights in our four days in Kruger. Some of these included, in no particular order:
- Spotting all of the "Big 5" in the course of three hours (on our last day!)
- Seeing a leopard in a tree- C's very first Kruger leopard (after multiple visits over the last few years)
- The rewards of self-driving- taking our own time with every single sighting and taking credit for occasionally being in the right place at the right time
- Leaving Joburg in the middle of the night in order to arrive at the park shortly after the gates opened for the day
- Every time we were about to give up after hours of fruitless spotting, an elephant would cross our path. I think Kruger was trying to make sure we would want to come back
Without further rambling, enjoy a few of my favourite shots from our first Kruger trip!
Exploring The Kruger the lekker way...self-drive, self-cater, self-spot!
40 minutes through the gate, and these ladies were chilling on the rocks waiting for us.
Playing or fighting? Bit of column A, bit of column B.
I'm pretty sure C thought I was fed up of spending hours in a hot car seeing nothing more than the occasional impala and was about to give up on life when I climbed out onto this rock...
Home sweet home at Olifants Rest Camp with glorious views over the Olifants river.
No, I didn't take a picture of tree bark...it's a little Scops owl.
There were a million (or eight...) of these vervet monkeys playing in the trees, and this is the only one who would sit still long enough for me to take a picture.
A slow sightings morning is easily improved with an elephant spotting.
Umm...I'm pretty sure he's coming right for us (and peeing at the same time...awesome).
Disgustingly amazing spider web.
Aftermath of the floods.
How can you not love a hyena pup with a face like that?
And...after a year in South Africa, our first daytime leopard sighting. And a glorious one at that.
Biiiiggg yawn...
Hippo outta the water...hippo outta the water...
Male Kudu sauntering after a female...
In case you're struggling to figure out exactly what yoga pose this lioness is in to have her legs in front of and beside her head, let me solve the mystery: there are two lionesses perched on a tree branch, one crouched down and one standing up.
