Just back from the best trip ever, a month in Kruger. It was without doubt, the best holiday we have ever done. We thought we would stay a while as we have lots of time now and we wanted to see the whole of Kruger. But even so, we could have spent longer there, never bored and always something to see. We flew into Johannesburg and stayed the night at an airport hotel, catching the first flight out to Kruger the following morning. The internal flight was as expensive as the international one and lasted just 45 minutes compared to 13 hours !
We hired a Duster which was perfect and gave us that bit of extra height which we did need at times. The roads were fine and a car would have done but it was the height we needed. We were soon off and heading to Kruger stopping at the big Spar shop near to Melelane Gate. It's advisable here for one to shop and one to remain with the vehicle. Lots of 'wide-boys' cruising the car park and tourists do stand out a mile, so better to be safe than sorry. A big shop done and into Kruger we went. Our first stop was Berg-en-Dal for 2 nights, followed by Skukuza, Satara, Letaba, Mopani, Shingwedzi, Punda Maria, Shimuwini, Oliphants, Lower Sabie and ending up back in the south at Crocodile Bridge.
Our favourite camp was Punda Maria, a lovely quiet camp in the north with a floodlit waterhole in the camp that was full of elephants for the 3 days we were there. The staff were lovely and friendly, a bungalow that looked like a hobbit house and was spotless clean. From this camp we went up to Parufi Picnic Site at the very top of Kruger. This was not for the feint-hearted as we saw a male Boomslang devouring a frog as soon as we got there. Lots of birds were added to our list and we were chatting to the picnic site warden when Simon saw a rat fall from a tree straight infront of him. Followed immediately by a Snouted Cobra with a Black Mamba following closely behind. Oh my dear lord above ! We stood back and watched them through binoculars.....the warden told us you have about half an hour left if you get bitten by a Black Mamba ! We never thought we would see any snakes but you always form your 'wish list' in your head and Black Mamba was on ours. The birds dried up mid morning as the temperatures reached their usual 40 degrees. If there was one fault, it was far too hot, unbearable at times. Parufi is not too far from the border where South Africa meets Zimbabwe and Mozambique.
Lots of good birds and mammals were added to our trip list with 44 lions, 10 leopards, 6 cheetah, white rhino, black rhino, honey badger, African wild cat, 1000's of elephants, zebra, giraffe, water buffalo, wildebeest, snakes, antelope and 300 species of bird. It was certainly a fantastic trip. Hope you enjoy looking at our photos and videos.
