Safari at Kruger National Park

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After packing a blanket and the food, we were picked up at the resort at 5:30am by a driver who was going to take us to the Numbi Gate (which opened at 6am), one of the gates on the western side of the park. There, we met up with the rest of the group and our driver, Happy. Even though his name was Happy, I kept referring to him as Lucky throughout the day for some reason. He was very patient, especially with the other group that was in the open vehicle with us, a Mexican family. They were a nice and friendly bunch, but sometimes were demanding towards Happy.

Happy always knew where to stop the vehicle for us to take pictures of the animals, but they were always telling him to move forward, or back, or stop here, and stop there...Janel and I never said a beep, because we always knew we were going to be able to get a nice shot.

The main objective when going on a safari is to see the Big 5, which is an elephant, a leopard, a buffalo, a lion and a rhino. From what we've heard, it is pretty rare to see them on one day. My friend Colin did not get to see each of the Big 5 when he went, so that was our main goal.
The safari itself is, in a nut shell, a 10 hour drive through the park, where you hope to spot animals not too far from the road. The roads can either be paved or dirt, and we make several spots for breakfast, lunch and bathroom breaks throughout the day.

The highlight of the day came 20 minutes into our safari, when we drove up to a traffic jam of about 12 cars, all vying for a prime spot to view some animals. I thought one of the Big 5 was there, but we saw much more. It turns out that a leopard had killed a Kudu (a deer-type), but a pack of hyenas had taken over the carcass for the time being. What we hadn’t notice right away was that the leopard was lying not too far away waiting for the hyenas to leave. At one point, another hyena tried to join the party, but was angrily confronted by 3 hyenas from the pack. Shortly after, the hyenas left, which is when the leopard walked over to the kudu and began eating. That was so cool to see, and Happy had stopped the car at the best spot available. There you have it, one of our first animals was the most difficult of the Big 5 to spot. After a short drive, we spotted a White Rhino by itself. It was not in a friendly mood because it did not want to face us. So, 30 minutes into our day, we already seen the most difficult to spot according to Happy. We then stopped for breakfast.

Once we got going again, Happy took us down a road that for 1.5 hours we saw absolutely nothing...and I mean nothing. During all that time, we stared out towards the wilderness hoping to spot an elephant, a lion and a buffalo, but saw nothing but grass and trees. We stopped again for a quick pee-break, and things got pretty exciting shortly after. About 30 seconds after being on the road again, we spotted an elephant that within 10 seconds, was out of sight hiding in the bushes. We drove another 30 seconds before we spotted another elephant somewhat at a distance, walking in the river. For those keeping track...3 out of the Big 5.

We drove up the road for a little while, seeing hundreds and hundreds of impalas...they are everywhere. We are confident no lion or leopard will ever starve to death at Kruger. Impalas have an ‘M’ marked on their ass, and because they are plentiful and are a popular choice amongst other animals as a source of food, locals refer to them as McDonalds. Hehe It didn’t take us too long to find about 100 buffalos relaxing in the shade very close to the road. That made it 4 out of 5...YAY!!!!

One thing that happens a lot is that you come upon parked cars, which means they are looking at something. At one point, we saw 5 cars stopped, so we thought something exciting was nearby, but it was a lousy snake...yeah, a snake. That was disappointing!!! Shortly after, we crossed paths with another car and exchanged information (what each had seen recently and where), and the lady told us where she saw a lion. We drove 6 km to a spot where 2 male lions were relaxing in the bushes; a female lion walked away as we arrived. The lions looked massive, so we wished we could have seen them walking around or that they were closer. In any case, we were thrilled to have spotted the last of the Big 5. Our day was complete at this point.

We continued driving and saw animal after animal. All in all, we saw about 18 different types, some several times. We saw lots of giraffes, 3 really close to our vehicle, and the same goes for zebras. We spotted 3 rhinos in total, but all 3 were busy eating, so we did not get amazing shots of their heads. Here the complete list of animals we saw, with the approximate number in brackets:
• Kudus (30)
• Giraffes (15)
• White Rhinos (3)
• Hyenas (5)
• Leopard (1)
• Impalas (hundreds)
• Honey Badger (1)
• Blue Wildebeest (20)
• Zebras (40)
• Ground Hornbills (15)
• Yellowbilled Hornbill (1)
• Waterbuck (2)
• Elephants (4)
• Baboons (20)
• Turtle (1)
• Snake (1)
• Buffalos (100+)
• Lions (3)
• Crocodile (1)
• Warthog (2)
• Hippos (7)

Not a bad safari I’d say. Seeing the Big 5 has truly completed the trip for us. We have visited beautiful Cape Town, Robben Island, Table Mountain, Durban, driven along the coast all the way back to Cape Town, went diving with Great White Sharks, seen whales both from the coast and from a boat and got to see Brazil play. For this trip to have been any better, Brazil would have had to lift the trophy, but we all know that is not going to happen.

The plan for tomorrow is to relax and to make our way back to Johannesburg. The only other things on our list are to visit Soweto, the Sandton City mall, Pretoria and to go to a Lion park to feed and play with lion cubs.

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