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Published: October 5th 2016
No-one can say we do things by halves. Whereas most people stay in the Kruger national park for about five days, maybe up to two weeks, we have so far been here about four weeks but are planning to spend a whopping 66 days in total! Having said that, while most people spend a good eight hours or so game driving, we would spend only about two to four hours a day. That was about the limit for the kids. On top of that, we alternated taking Jake for his nap drive while the other one stayed at camp for some quality time with Kyla.
Scott described Kruger to the kids as "the biggest zoo in the world" where the people were in cages and the animals could roam freely. Kyla would sometimes go into our accommodations and say, "We are going into our cage." It was pretty much true! All the camps are surrounded by electric fences, making it relatively safe to walk around in. Apart from the baboons. We once watched them scale the fence in no time, which was a little unsettling!
Before we got to the park, we asked the kids
how many animals they thought we'd see on our first day. Jake guessed one and Kyla's guess was ten. That day alone we saw giraffes and elephants at close quarters as well as all the usual deer-types, a couple of zebra, a rhino (rare), and crocs and hippos. The kids finally felt like they were in Africa!
After four weeks in the park we have pretty much seen all the main animals, apart from cheetahs. Highlights were:
* crocs eating a zebra in the river,
* a mating pair of lions fairly close to the road
* A leopard sitting under a tree in which it had dragged an impala for a meal later
* The reaction of a pride of lions (one male and five female) who were snoozing under some trees when a couple of Impala (deer) wandered amongst them. The impala suddenly noticed the lions and of course panicked and turned and ran, stumbling as they went. This woke up the lions, but they were too lazy to chase them unfortunately! Might have been a bit too much for the kids though I suppose!
* Watching a herd of
elephants cross the river to right below the Skukuza camp restaurant, graze along right by the walkway, almost break the electric fence surrounding camp, then walk back across the river to "home." This all took two amazing hours!
* Coming across a family a hyenas in the road. They were very active and fun to watch until too many cars joined us and scared them into just sitting quietly.
* Watching a pride of five mommy lions and six babies. They were resting and not exactly active, but who can resist a baby lion cub, especially when they happened to be only about 15 feet from the road?!
* Watching three lions get displaced from a watering hole by a herd of thirsty elephants
* Seeing a mommy hyena nurse her tiny pups just a few feet away from us
* Watching a baby leopard play in the rocks as mommy leopard gnaws on an impala leg (too distant to get a photo)
* Coming across four male lions on the rocks on the opposite side of the river to us and watching as they jump across rocks, wade across the river, and disappear
into the grass on our side, only to walk right in front of our car as we pull off from the crowd! They then trotted towards a giraffe and Scott and I got excited, but the giraffe quickly ran off, ending it right there!
* Being the first ones on a wild dog in the middle of the road. We followed it as it ran along, making a noise like when a truck reverses, which we assumed was a call for its babies.
* watching an impala drag its kill, an impala, up the rocks
Jake was really into it for the most part and would excitedly point things out. Kyla was into it sometimes and would surprise me with the things she spotted that the rest of us missed. When she got bored of it and stopped looking out of the window, she was generally content to play with her butterfly binoculars and hang out. Jake, on the other hand, would start to bug Kyla once he lost interest, trying to grab her things and generally be an annoying little brother. At that point we'd usually break out the snacks and start heading for
home. Throwing a CD into the player also helped immensely. We did have moments, though, where scott and I just had to roll our eyes. For example, in our first few days when we were walking along the river in Lower Sabie camp and a huge herd of elephants came down to bathe. Kyla and Jake barely looked up, so absorbed were they in looking for dandelion clocks!
Most of our accommodation has been in Skukuza camp, which is the biggest camp in the park. However, our first three nights were spent in a rondola (round house) in the sought-after Lower Sabie camp, which was a nice start as we had air conditioning and a sink (but it was all shared bathroom). We then moved to Skukuza Camp. This was more challenging as we were in a pre-setup tent. It wasn't one of those fancy ones you see in brochures but a pretty basic one with four beds. We slept well the first few nights but then a heatwave hit so it was like sleeping in an oven. The kids did amazingly well thankfully! After that we had a cold snap and I dressed Kyla in fleece
footed pajamas for the first time since she was about two years old! The weather was so weird, alternating between tropical and quite chilly. I was glad we'd packed such a big variety of clothes, especially pajamas, for the kids.
On about our third night in the tent, we had the most amazing thunder storm. It started at about 10pm and lasted for about four hours. I stayed awake for much of it. The lightening lit up the tent through the little triangle window we'd left open for a makeshift nightlight, but it was the thunder that was the amazing part. It was so incredibly loud and truly sounded as if the sky were cracking in two. I kept envisioning all the poor animals freaking out. I was fully expecting Jake and Kyla to end up sleeping in our bed, scared, but they somehow slept through the whole thing! Mind you, I do play a white noise app on the iPad every night that's the sounds of rain and distant thunder rumbles. They must have thought mommy went a bit crazy with the volume that night!
The best part about being in a tent,
though, was that you really feel out in nature. In the night we heard lions roaring and hyenas giggling and whooping. Our tent was situated literally ten feet away from the perimeter fence so we had quite a few "visitors" in our time there. There was a group of warthogs that sometimes showed up in the early morning and we even saw hyenas after dark (or at least their eyeballs lit up by our neighbor's flashlight!) We were also close to the staff village and could often hear them drumming and partying on a weekend night!
The kids liked this camp for the playground and swimming pool. We even found two more playgrounds five km out of camp. The only problem with the camp playground was that it was often invaded by troops of vervet monkeys. They're cute but can be aggressive, so whenever they showed up, playtime was over. On the hot days, we spent a lot of time in the pool trying to stay cool. Again, though, you had to watch out for the resident vervet monkeys.
We had loved the restaurant at Lower Sabie for a number of reasons, which I
will talk more about in my next blog. The restaurant in Skukuza Camp didn't really work for us though. It was just too stuffy and posh to feel comfortable taking the kids to. It had a great location on stilts overlooking the river but it also had tables very close together and romantic candle jars throughout. We stayed away from it, instead trying out the take-away. It was OK once in a while but it didn't take long to get tired of junk food. Most of the time we cooked very simple meals in the communal camp kitchen and ate them on our tent porch, washed down with a can of beer. It was quite a communal feeling as most of the other campers cooked right outside their tent on a bbq (called a braai here). We really had to watch the kids around those, though! Breakfast was usually eaten in the car while animal viewing. It kept the kids busier that way! Lunch was sandwiches at the playground or pool.
A typical day for us might look like this:
5:45 - wake up
6:15 - pile into the car to go driving.
Eat dry cereal, milk, and coffee along the way
9:30 - Go to the kids' favorite playground at the Indigenous Plant Nursery.
11:00 - Run errands such as the camp shop or filling up the car, and eat lunch
12:00 - One of us drives Jake for a nap while animal spotting, while the other plays with Kyla.
2:00 - Meet back up and go to the pool.
4:30 - Sneak in another game drive, or let the kids play at the camp playground while we check the slow slow wifi. Post a photo to Facebook if it's working fast enough!
5:30 - Dinner, then play outside the tent or at camp playground
7:00 - start getting ready for bed, aiming to have kids asleep by 7:30
8:00 - play on our iPads (write this blog, transfer photos...)
9:00 - night night time for us too!
After two and a half weeks in our tent in Skukuza camp, it was time to move to Pretoriuskop Camp for a couple of nights. It was a weird week for reservations as schools were off so everything had been booked way
in advance by local South Africans. We'd just taken what we could find. The first night we'd booked two 2-person rondolas (round huts) for about $40 each hut. We'd planned for one parent and one child to sleep in each, but the kids wanted to stay together. We ended up taking one mattress out of one of our huts and cramming it onto the floor in between the two beds. Jake slept on the floor in the middle, Kyla had one bed, and scott and I had to share a single bed. It was a bit cramped but it worked out ok!
Our next night was the polar opposite. We moved within the same camp to a two-bedroom hut for $150/night. We would never normally pay that much but given it was the school holidays, it was literally all that was left. I was surprised and pleased when I realized we were assigned one of the huts that had been custom built for the British Royal family's visit in 1947 (see the plaque photo). It was a huge place with a kitchen, living room area, a bedroom with a double bed and attached bathroom, and a bedroom
with two single beds and attached bathroom. The kids were excited to have such a big place and ran around exploring it. I tried to tell them the historical significance but I'm not sure they really understood! To be honest, though, it wasn't really fit for a king these days as it was really just your bog-standard hut and was kind of run down. Still, it was nice to have a bit of normalcy in our lives: our own room away from the kids, watching the video monitor, coffee and cereal at home the next morning instead of in the car...
After spending time at our Royal residence we decided to go to the pool. It was an impressive looking pool built right into the natural bedrock with a shallow stream running into the main pool. Jake and Kyla had fun walking up and down the stream repeatedly!
Both nights we ate at the only restaurant in camp, a Wimpy fast food place. It was very kid-friendly, which was nice, but I'm so looking forward to getting back to Lower Sabie camp and their great restaurant in a week from now as I'm so
tired of eating French fries with everything. Africa really isn't good for the waistline!
As far as animal-spotting around Pretoriuskop went, the first animal we saw when we left camp for our first drive around there was a sable. These are huge deer-like animals and this area is famous for them, even having a statue of one in camp. When we saw it we figured there must be a lot around. Later, we talked to a lady who'd been coming to Kruger for 60 years and she said that they were very rare and she'd not seen one in the last thirty years! We were shocked. I guess we got lucky! Other than that, we just saw the usual animals. It was tough to spot things as this area gets a lot more rainfall so the grasses were higher. It made for really pretty savanna landscapes but it was so easy for animals to hide! When we stayed in the Royal hut we were close to the perimeter fence and saw impala so and elephants!
After our one night of luxury we were back to reality - a pre-setup tent again back at Skukuza
Camp for three nights. It was fun to lie in bed and listen to the whoop of the hyenas. I'd missed that! We then had to go back to Preskorikop camp for just one more night, but this time in a regular 4-person hut. Moving about so much is a pain with kids in tow. Darn school holidays! We are looking forward to our remaining five weeks when we get to stay back in our favorite camp, Lower Sabie.
*** Please scroll right down to see more photos ***
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Kathleen
non-member comment
Your African journey so far
That was a great read! It's fantastic to see how you're able to adjust the kids so well to being away from home in such a unique place of wilderness. You guys are a rare couple - such a sense of adventure with the patience to bring kids along and not get thrown off in any chaos! We admire you :)