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Published: October 18th 2010
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Kruger National Park is 65km by 350km, we enter through the Southern gate Malelane and have a long drive ahead of us to get to our camp site as the speed limit is a strict 50kpm on the tarmac roads of the park, lower on gravel roads. We assume all of the wildlife is on the dirt track roads so don't have too much hope on the tarmac roads, but over the 3 days it turns out to be the opposite!
First we pass some zebra, wildebeast and antelopes, mainly impala. Then as all the cars in front turn off to one of the southern camp sites, I stop the van speechless. A leopard is crossing the tarmac road in front of me! It sits on the edge off the road, looks at us, looks about, then slowly struts off into the long grass. If it hadn't walked out in front of us we'd never have seen it as it is completely camoflaged by the grass. We have only driven 5 more minutes when we reach loads of stopped cars, they are all watching a male and female lion relaxing in the grass by the road, amazing!
We come across many
elephants throughout the days, and have 3 shady experiences with the males. One involves an open safari truck getting too close and quickly reversing towards us, we have to reverse quickly too as the elephant starts shaking its ears and huffing. We then manage this twice ourselves while on our own. We aren't even close to the elephants but something upsets them and they starts kicking one leg about to charge, this is the only danger to humans in vehicles so we get pretty nervous.
The first night we stay in a camp near the Orpen gate. The gate opening and closing hours are very strict, fines are imposed if you leave the park late and you cannot enter after 4:30 if your camp site is more than an hour from the gate. We take a wrong turn, then meet herds of animals in the road so it's a panic to get there in time. The camp site is basic, toilets, showers and small kitchen only. Luckily it is surrounded by high fencing as the hyenas prowl around at night, Hawkins spends 2 hours looking into the night with his head torch, scaring himself about whose eyes are looking back
at him.
The next morning, while I'm eating my cereal an Impala comes crashing into the fence, it looks desperate and we soon realise why. It has been chased to exhaustion by 2 huge wild dogs, they chase it into the open again and then make their kill. Amazing viewing, but it puts me off my breakfast. Hawkins misses the whole thing as he's in the shower.
We have another long drive north to another camp site for the evening, this time a rustic camp so even more basic but with some outdoor showers so great fun. We see loads more animals on the way and book a night drive for the day after.
Day 3 we get up at 5:30 as the camp site gate opens at 6am. It is barely even light but it's the best time to see the animals. We drive for about an hour and see nothing, not even an impala, when suddenly Hawkins spots something, first real animal he's spotted, normally rocks and trees which he thinks are animals... This time he's done good, a black rhino is creeping about the bushes, it soon runs away once it hears us, but great to see
anyway! Then we come across some hides so we see lots of birds and hippos.
After an afternoon nap we start our night drive in a open safari jeep with a guide. This is the only way to see the park outside of the gate times. He points out a Klipspringer before we've even picked up the other passengers, a rarer antelope than our usual spots. It turns out to be an excellent drive, we see Tsessebe, ostriches, kori bustards and a jackal before the sun goes down. And an impala is right next to an African Wild Cat. The guide says the impala is not scared of the cat but will keep its distance, how wrong could he be! The impala licks the cat and makes it jump, a very unusual sight and these cats are rarely seen before sun down. As it gets dark we get the spot lights out, we see many scrub hares and then the delight, a serval. Our guide says it's rarer than seeing a leopard so we're very lucky.
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