Chilling with the animals in Kruger National Park

The long drive from Karoo to Bloemfontein took even longer due to the many roadworks we faced along the way. This was followed by another long day of driving, this time to Pretoria. The third day of long driving finally got us to Kruger National Park. Kruger was not originally on our list of places to visit, but as we looked at the time we had to get to Maputo, we realised we could squeeze it in, and I'm so glad we did. I loved Kruger! We were lucky not to go during peak period, when I imagine it gets a little overwhelming with the number of visitors it accommodates at the various rest camps, but we had a great experience. We decided to camp at two different rest camps over the two nights to get a varied experience and cover different sections of the park, and both Berg-en Dal and Skukuza (the largest of the rest camps) were good.

What really surprised us, and we have heard that it isn't that common to be so lucky, was that we managed to spot 4 out of the big 5 animals within the first hour of us being in the park, including elephants, rhinos, lions and a leopard.

The next morning we were up early for our game drive and spotted a herd of buffalo, which completed the big five within the first 12 hours we were in the park. Up until this point in our trip, we had seen all but the leopard, so we hadn't done too badly.

We enjoyed the game drive so much that our morning drive lasted nearly 5 hours! - though we did have a short stop for a coffee and breakfast...and we were off again in the early afternoon as we couldn't get enough of the animals.

One thing we didn't expect was the traffic we would face on the roads through the park...

But we did manage to get up close and personal with some of the animals and had time to chill in the designated areas of the park.

 

After two days of game drives and enjoying the animal spotting, we finally made our way to Mozambique, after a short stopover in Nelspruit near the border to pick up a new fridge for the car as the other one gave up on us!