Kruger NP - Rooooaaaarrrrrr!

I hope most of you have caught up on our pictures but the blog is trailing behind by a few days...

While we were on the East side of South Africa we took the opportunity to go to Kruger National Park. We were trying to plan this outing in Cairo while Steve was ill and there are so many options out there it's hard to know the best. Kruger really isn't the most economical place to visit especially if you pick a scheduled safari. Somehow we stumbled upon the absolute best option for us which was renting a car in Jo'burg and then booking lodging right outside the park.

So after exploring Jo'burg for a few days we headed to Kruger and checked-in to our lodge with the intentions of setting up some game drives with their guide. Thankfully the owner and guide upon hearing that we were on a budget, suggested that we drive ourselves into the park and see what we could find. If we felt like we weren't getting what we desired then we could book a drive with the guide.

The first day in the park we went at "the wrong time of the day" which was late morning through the afternoon. The best times reportedly were either first thing in the morning or very late afternoon. With that in mind we went to just cruise and enjoy the park. The guide pointed us to a good road to try out which was a dirt drive right off the main road at the Crocodile Bridge entrance. We crept down this dirt road at about 5 km/h, both hanging out the windows scanning the terrain for any signs of animals. We were rewarded with our patience and first off saw some rhino, then a few giraffe, zebras were also around, the never ending impalas, warthogs, kudu, and then some elephant (very close!)..oh, and I can't forget all the hippos, crocs, and various birds. As you can tell we were very lucky!! By the end of the day we had even seen a leopard far off in a tree eating its prey, a cheetah sitting on the banks of the river, and then a second leopard about 15 meters from our car walking along blending in and out of the brush. It was amazing!!!!

We ended the day with all this beginners luck and we started to fret that we would leave the park without seeing any lions. Although everyone we told about our findings said that even if we didn't see lions we had seen more in one day than some people do in weeks or even ever. I forgot to mention that the first day we also saw (cape) buffalo a variety of water buffalo.

The second day we went right when the gates opened at 6AM armed with a picnic basket of coffee and scones that the lodge prepared for us...completely roughing it as you can see. :-) It was neat to see the different kind of animal activity in the morning when it was still dusk and slighter cooler. We only had a few hours before we were going to head back for breakfast and saw nothing new until the very end when we turned around on the road and headed back to the gates. A lone lion was wandering along next to the road, she appeared and disappeared so quickly that I don't believe we even caught her on camera. But she completed our Big 5 sightings!

Once again later that day we went back into the park and from our photos you can see that we indeed did see more lion...I believe the total count for that day was 10 and they were soooo close! The cats were my favorite if you couldn't already tell. Our last sighting of the day was leopard who was napping close to the road. After we spotted him he decided to wake up, stretch, and then start his daily shower routine. Even though I wanted to just sit there and watch him for hours we had to high tail it down the dirt road to make it out of the Park before they closed the gates. Take note of our "safari machine" the Toyota Tazz and then imagine flying down a dirt road at 80km/h hoping that no animals decide to wander across your path because without power steering there wasn't much steering "feel", if you catch my drift (no pun intended).