Blogs from Mpumalanga , South Africa, Africa - page 7

It seems like some days you can head out on safari and barely travel any distance because you keep seeing interesting things along the way to stop at, and other days it feels as if the animals have all gone into hibernation! Today started out as a hibernation type day. Everyone else we spoke to along the way said the same thing too. Discouraged, we decided to cross the bridge and take a new dirt road home as opposed to our usual tarmac way. At least it would be new scenery. After heading only a few hundred meters along it we came across a car coming from the opposite direction. He said he'd seen nothing much. Dirt roads are very slow going, and given this report, we decided to just take the fast tarmac road home ... read more

Another fairly early start leaving our camp site.It rained in the night which is a fairly rare occurrence these days. We stopped at a factory that makes glass ornaments from recycled glass and compared to Tuesday it was warmer near the glass furnace than outside! It didn't take long to leave Swaziland and enter South Africa.The road was being repaired and one of the men looking after the stop and go sign jumped up in the air when he let us through!! We stopped at a 'super spar' which is the biggest spar 've ever been to, to get stuff for lunch. I was surprised to see very familiar items for sale such as golden syrup. I always enjoy looking around foreign supermarkets. After lunch we then entered the Kruger national park desperate to see cats! ... read more

We had a warm welcome at Lower Sabie Camp by a herd of elephants. We checked into our rondola at about 4pm and debated whether to have a shower (it had been several days!) or just go for food at the restaurant. We decided the latter, and I'm glad we did. We had a show of elephants walking by during the whole meal. This is real Africa! The next day, our first real day at this camp, we set off driving with high hopes of finding big cats as this is what the Lower Sabie area is known for. We had a few lion sightings but what was really noticeable was the sheer number of elephants along the river. It was as if someone had come along and just released a freight train full of elephants! ... read more

No-one can say we do things by halves. Whereas most people stay in the Kruger national park for about five days, maybe up to two weeks, we have so far been here about four weeks but are planning to spend a whopping 66 days in total! Having said that, while most people spend a good eight hours or so game driving, we would spend only about two to four hours a day. That was about the limit for the kids. On top of that, we alternated taking Jake for his nap drive while the other one stayed at camp for some quality time with Kyla. Scott described Kruger to the kids as "the biggest zoo in the world" where the people were in cages and the animals could roam freely. Kyla would sometimes go into our ... read more

Got in our Pretoria guesthouse for our first South African meal. The women were most pleasant, and in their introductory conversation suggested they prepare a typical breakfast. We have no food limitations. Urgh...could not believe we got eggs, baked beans, mushrooms, tomato, sausage. I have not really gotten over a month of that menu in England. We will try to do better. The drive today is about four hours. Our plan is to check into Daan's Place, get any suggestions for the Panoramic Route, then off again. Unfortunately, it was overcast, but hey, we're only here once, so we'll make the best of it. You're supposed to experience the various overlooks starting from south to north...they supposedly get better and better. We mentioned we might drive straight to the top and work our way back. Well, ... read more