Safari Part 2: Kruger National Park

A continuation of our safari adventures. Part 1 here.

Our second night we splurged and stayed at a ‘bush camp’ called Biyamiti where we had our own cabin (1 of only 15) and a great view of a river where there was a huge herd of elephants.  Our third night was another larger camp called Satara, where we were again camping.

a rare 'get out' spot

crazies

thirsty

evening cocktails a Biyamiti watching the elephants at the river (above)

Our little cottage at Biyamiti, along with the Micra

impala

vulture

roadblock..

In Africa everyone on safari wants to see ‘The Big 5’ which is rhino, elephant, buffalo, lion and leopard. We knew our chances of actually seeing all of them were pretty slim, though in the first 24 we had managed to spot rhino, elephants, and buffalo on our own. We were extremely luckily that on our sunrise drive, the guide heard from another guide that there were lions at a particular spot, and we managed to catch them. They blend in so well I probably would have never spotted them myself (they were just laying down, not moving around).

baby baboon!

The main ways of spotting game are a) driving extremely slow and keeping your eyes peeled b) occasionally coming around a corner and they are blocking the road c) there is a mass of cars pulled over to the side of the road, and you know there must be something interesting. The fourth day we had 25km to drive from our campsite to the park exit and had seen 4 of the Big 5, along with lots of other cooler things like giraffes, hippos, zebra, hyena, caracal, etc  but were still disappointed to have ended our visit without a leopard. Low and behold, with 10km left in the park we came upon a huuuge traffic jam. Not being able to see what was causing it, we finally got a nice fellow driver to point out the leopard sitting on a knoll. Never would have spotted it. We stayed for almost 30 minutes and it got up once very quickly but spent most of the time just lounging. It was too far away to get any spectacular shots, but it was pretty amazing all the same.

Baobob tree

ostrich - it's hard to tell the scale but this thing was ~10ft tall

coool colorful birdie

sunset

dinner at Satara

leopard

me, giraffe in the background, pretty excited

Matt & Stevens passtime in the park

Leaving the park, we were completing our 2200mile loop and needed to catch a flight in Johannesburg that evening. It was a tight turn around time, but we managed to make a quick stop-off at Blyde River Canyon, which had incredible views of some dramatic scenery. Thus concluded the first two weeks of the trip, and our 2,200 mile odyssey with the Micra.