Blogs from Mpumalanga , South Africa, Africa - page 61

Howzit Bro? Greetings from South Africa! After a long flight it was excellent to sample the home comforts offered to us by the extended Isaacson family in Jo'Burg. So much so we were tempted to delay the first part of the trip and stay with Avril for longer! After some good sleep (we were tired after all the organization it took to leave London - ahhh bless I here you say) we decided to change plans before we had even started. We looked at a map and thought it was foolish to travel past the Kruger Park without actually getting off the bus. So that we did, and we blew our budget straight away by hiring a small car to get us into the park - incidentally it was a Toyota Tazz, a rather appropriate name ... read more

Wow, seems like Kruger was months ago so we've gota dig deep in our memory banks for this Blog. Currently in Vic Falls, Zambia after 7 days of Camping in Botswana, Namibia and Zambia so u'll be updated about that shortly. Ok, Kruger Park, We travelled to Nelspruit via the Baz Bus which was on the outskirts of the Park itself and were fortunate enough to stay in a hostel called 'Nelspruit Backpackers',where they run their own safari's from,we chose the 3 days,2 nights option,which involved staying in one of the camps inside the park in a 2 man tent, the tents were only 6ft long so when you are 6ft 3" it creates a bit of a problem!! After we booked our Safari at the Hostel we were informed that a guide would be picking ... read more

So we began the game drive that promised us, Lions, Leopards, Rhino, Buffalo and Elephants. I think these are the big five but feel free to correct me. We began the drive in a civil way, seeing some really amazing wildlife, lots of antelope, kudu, warthog, bushbuck type animals but then our guide had some feedback through his earpiece which alerted him to a spotting of one of the big 5. Suddenly we were not on the dirt track any more, but driving through thick scrub and mowing down small trees while trying to avoid having our eyes gouged out by very prickly bushes. But then we began to see them. Buffalo. Wow, a huge heard of them and they are huge. I don't know why I find them funny they really aren't, maybe the way ... read more

Early Sunday morning we headed to downtown JoBurg Park Station to take our 4.5 hour Greyhound bus ride to Nelspruit (East of JoBurg). It was a luxury coach with comfortable seats. After checking into our hotel, we hit the Riverside Mall where we had lunch, did some surfing at in internet cafe, shopped, browsed the local Casino, saw Miami Vice and then had dinner at Nando's (Niraj's favourite spot). After dinner we had an early night as we had a 5am departure for the Safari the next morning. Monday morning we headed to Krueger National Park in our open-top Safari truck truck with our tour guide Bronson. We entered the park right when it opened at 6am to catch the early morning movement of the animals in the national park. We were lucky enough to see ... read more

We needed to be in Rivonia by 06:30, which meant getting up at 04:30. Phil forgot to correct the time on his mobile to the local time-zone which is 1 hour ahead of the UK. This isn’t a major issue unless you’re using your phone as an alarm clock, which we were! Fortunately Ella wanted to go back to bed and knocked on our door at 05:00 to say good-bye. A short mad flap ensued which, as it turns out, was unnecessary as the mechanic joining us was 45mins late. Our bus got under way shortly before 07:30, progress was pretty slow, and we lost a piece of the bus along the way. No one knows quite how or why, but driving through the Magoobaskloof Mountains, our driver noticed an excessive amount of sparks in his ... read more