South Africa, the north east

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We were quite scared of Jo'burg, so landed, collected our hire car and pretty much bypassed the city, stopping only for a tour of Soweto. This was very good, if somewhat intrusive, but we got to see the township - from its millionaires row with Winnie Mandela's 24 room house with pool to the poorer areas where they had only recently had water provided.

From Jo'burg we drove across to Kruger National Park, enjoying the scenary as we went. Really good views across the landscape - better in the morning as it was burning season so in the afternoons the valleys tended to fill up with haze.The animals in Kruger gave a fabulous performance, which we watched from our car. A herd of elephants crossed the road just infront of us soon after we entered the park, we saw seven lions getting up from a hard day of laying in the sun to go to bed, loads of birds, zebra, giraffes, hippos, crocs, endless impala and other types of antelopes. And where we were staying was lovely, so we had a fab three days there. And then it just got better as we treated ourselves to two nights at a game reserve. Someone else then had to drive us around and spot the animals! Saw lots more, including a leopard and baby lions - very cute and cuddly! Our hut had an outdoor shower, and the loo overlooked the watering hole across the sand river. Way too much food and drink! Wonderful!

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Photos

En route to Kruger
The country side outside of Jo'burg

Elephants!
Our first view of elephants in Kruger

Giraffe
Driving down the road, turn the corner, and have to break sharply for this lovely giraffe.

Post lunch nap
Its hard work this animal spotting......

Giraffes and Zebras
This was our view one lunch time at the game reserve.