Blogs from Sabi Sands, Mpumalanga , South Africa, Africa

We started our morning game drive at 5:30am but not before having some coffee and a few healthy snacks. Jonty, who is strong and stands 6’7” tall, immediately headed us to the Sands River which our suite overlooks. Due to rains that had fallen the previous day, Jonty and Lewis consulted another guide and determined the river was safe for us to cross so the Land Rover headed into the water and we crossed at a quick pace. Another group was not as brave as Kevin and me and refused to let their guide do the crossing. Within 5 minutes of crossing, we came upon a beautiful leopard lounging on a tree branch. It completely ignored us as we sat and watched it for at least a half hour. Jonty was then informed via radio that ... read more

Our last day at Tydon Safari Camp and it was still an early start but this time we are off to Kruger National Park itself and we are not sure just how this will compare to driving around private game parks where we could go off road where as Kruger won’t let people do that. The Aussies and the Welsh couple will be on board so for the first time in the last 3 drives the land rover and the guide won’t be just for us. We headed off just after 6.30am and it was a half hour drive to get to the gate into Kruger. Neil was our guide this morning and he has the job to do to find us lions although we have told him that our leopard experiences to date in both ... read more

Our final morning at Gomo Gomo and we were going to join the morning game drive before breakfast and then be delivered to Hoedspruit Airport to be picked up and taken south to part 2 of our safari adventure. Again someone came knocking at the door at 5.15am and we readied ourselves for the departure after breakfast by making sure we were virtually packed and ready to go. Another chilly morning and we were well rugged up against the cold although this time there was some overcast cloud so that the bite from the wind as we started out on the drive wasn’t quite as severe as it had been on previous mornings. After the sighting of the leopard in the late afternoon yesterday there was still anticipation amongst ourselves and the American family that we ... read more

The first full day of our safari stared with a wake- up call at 5:30 then some tea and coffee before our morning safari and we saw Impala, again, and again, and again. Then Elvis spotted some Leopard tracks and started to track the Leopard through a donga, a river bed, there was some really serious 4-wheel driving. While Sean and Elvis tracked the illusive Leopard we saw a dazzle of Zebra, a herd of Elephant, Kudu, an e agle owl, a Bataleur eagle, various types of buck before finally finding the Leopard named as Scotia’s daughter, who was just lazing in the grass, but everyone was still really excited. Then Chris and I went for a swim but no diving catches this time, too many people. So we got out pretty quickly and then went ... read more

We woke at 0445 to get ready for the longest driving day in the whole trip. We are off to Kruger National Park, then Arathusa Game reserve. We left Petoria to early to try and get breakfast there so we took our chances on the freeway. By 0730 everyone was thinking about food, so Maria navigated us to the nearest town, Middleburgh. Turns out it was not that close and little did we know at the time it was the start of a trend for taking excursions off the beaten track. We enjoyed another inexpensive Wimpy meal. The journey was long, we took what we thought would be a scenic route, but ended up a very long way to Malelane Gate into Kruger. The road works were prolific, but seemingly slow in progress. Workers lined the ... read more