We started our drive from Hluelue Game Park to Kruger Park via Swaziland, where we stopped for lunch at a place that had a candle factory and a few other things for sale on the street. We stayed the night in Swaziland, then we crossed the border again back into South Africa and made our way to Kruger Park where we got in the jeeps and drove around for a few hours.
I can’t even begin to tell you about our time in Kruger national park. A “Game Drive” through the park is really luck of the draw. If you happen to come across an animal, that’s great, if not, you just don’t see anything. Some groups didn’t see anything the first day we were there. We were pretty lucky seeing some impalas, baboons, a rare bird called the King Fisher, and some elephants. The next day we spent 14 hours in the park…starting our drive at 6am, we saw a lion laying in the grass….all I could get on camera was his main (which you can see a blurry brown spot in the picture when you see it), then we were driving and seeing nothing, when all of a sudden, our guide floored it. We were all like, “what is going on?” And he finally told us that someone spotted a cheetah. We got there in time to see it and take pictures. He told us that to see a cheetah is very rare. Only 10% of all tourists who come to Kruger Park see a cheetah. Our guide hadn’t seen one for 8 months and had never been up as close as we were! The cat itself is beautiful. I can’t stop looking at it. The rest of the day was filled with the usual elephant, baboons, impalas, but we came across terrapins, a tortoise, an endangered bird called a red hornbill, a hawk (I can’t remember the name), and we had a surprise visitor to our jeep who tried to ride with us, but didn’t quite make it. A crested gambet flew right into a pole in our jeep and landed inside. We pulled over so we could get him out, but he was under the seat my mom and Marcia’s seat (Marcia and Anna have been in our group and we have become good friends with them. Anna is about my age, so it was nice to have her around!). Another member of our jeep took video of my mom and Marcia because their reactions were so funny. It was pretty funny, but very sad for the gambet. He was still alive when we picked him up, but he broke his wing when he collided with our jeep and our guide told us that he would not survive. ☹ We were sad about that. We ended that day drive with seeing some kudu…a type of deer that has some stripes on its back…we saw three males and one female. The males had extremely large horns….and the guys in our jeep were loving every minute.
The next part of our day was the night safari drive. We were told that it wasn’t worth our money because we wouldn’t see anything. On a night safari, there are two spotlights in the open safari van….I got to hold one of them with one hand, and take pictures and video with the other hand…so the videos may be a little bumpy. We saw a leopard…I don’t think anyone got a good picture of him….mine is a little blurry, but you can tell what it is. The leopard, named “pumba” in Afrikaans, was walking in the tall grass, then walked across the road, sat down to check us out, then kept on walking and was gone. We then came across hyenas, a spotted eagle owl….and as we were taking pictures of the owl, our guide says, “something is in the road up there. It looks like Lions!” And they were…three lionesses were just walking down the road. We drove up, turned off the engine, another jeep drove right behind us, turned off its engines, and those lionesses just walked right on by. I had the spotlight and was shining it on one, but when I started shining it on her as she walked by the van, she looked at me, and I decided it was probably best not to bring any extra attention to myself, so I chose to shine it on the other two following behind her. In the pictures and the video, you will see a collar on one of the lions. Kruger park rescues lions so they can be released back into the wild, that’s what they collar is from. We later came across a small bobcat like animal called a ganet, and then that ended our safari tour….not bad for going on something where you don’t see anything! Another special thing about the experience in Kruger....The Big Five. THe Big Five in Africa consists of the Lion, Leopard, Rhino, Elephant and Water Buffalo....we saw all five, which is rare. :)
Today we drove to Johannesburg and we start our next leg of the trip to Victoria Falls in Zambia tomorrow! This trip has flown by so fast!
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