Safari: Kruger National Park

The next morning we were off across the Swazi border to South Africa & Kruger National Park. At the border we received our exit stamps with no incident, and as the last step before leaving the country they were searching cars. As mentioned previously, ours was an extremely delicate packing job that took 20 minutes each morning. As we returned to the car the man asked me to open the back. I put on a puppy dog face and looked and the mountain of luggage. Upon actually looking through the back window he too made a face that showed he was terrified of what might come tumbling out at him were he to open it and said ‘you are American? Obama?’. And with a huge smile and some nodding from me, he let us go with our pack job intact.

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Crocs

Hippos

Our first rhino!

why did the rhino cross the road?

cool fork-tailed birdie

Savannah sunset

night-time buffalo

sunrise elephant

vulture tucked up there on the tree

I spy...

a lioness

Kruger National Park is 7,500 square miles (huuuge) and runs along South Africa’s eastern border with Mozambique. We spent three nights in the park, which has over 20 different ‘camps’. The larger ones accommodate hundreds of people and have lodges, cabins, and campsites along with shops and restaurants. The few smallest ones have only 10-15 cabins. All are surrounded by electrified fences (don’t want any cheetahs sneaking in at night) and the whole park has strict gate times where you are only aloud to be outside of camp between sunrise and sunset. The speed limits throughout the park are 30pmh on paved roads and 25 on gravel roads, so it takes you a while to get anywhere. There is a huge network of roads throughout the park and you can drive your own car around, stopping and starting whenever you want (though not leaving the safety of your car except in infrequent designated spots). Each of the camps also runs organized drives in an open safari vehicle with a guide, and we did both a sunset and a sunrise drive.

Wildebeast

morning stroll around the camp perimeter

giraffes apparently chew on bones to get minerals out

seems like a bit of a dangerous proposition

when I was a young warthog...

giraffe kisses

I have so many neat pictures from Kruger that I’m breaking it up into two posts. We spent parts of 4 days in the park, three nights. Our first night was camping in a large camp called Berg-en-Dal which had a mile long path around the perimeter fence, and a dam overlooking a watering hole that rhino’s frequented.

herd of elephants

elephant running away

..and some of Stevens

impala has birdies on him

wildlife spying - one of the few places to get out of the car