Kruger National Park

With a few tears, we packed up the car and left Elephant Plains private game lodge and headed out for Kruger National Park. I had left Canada with high expectations of Kruger, but some of the guests at EP left us with a little trepidation. "You don't get to see as many animals, because you can't leave the road like the drivers in the private parks do." was a common comment.

But within minutes of entering the park at a northern gate, even before we had gotten to reception and were therefore "in" the park, we saw a herd of about 50 buffalo crossing the road. And I am 100% certain what is buffalo now. Then a bunch of zebra crossed the road, overall, lots of zebra sightings within the park, I can't even remember how many. At a waterhole next to the road, we saw a crocodile sleeping. And then we drove down a dirt road for a few minutes and found a giraffe munching on a tree right beside the road. This is probably my favourite sighting yet, besides the elephants surrounding our jeep, because I found him myself, (all by myself, even UG was saying "What? What?" in response to my "Ooh! Ooh!") and he didn't wander off right away like all the others we have gotten close to have. Even when another passing car spooked him off, he came back to pose for us.

As soon as we pulled back onto the main paved road, a rhino crossed right in front of us, allowing for more great pictures. And then a bunch of vultures and jackals picking at whatever was left on some elephant bones about 60m off the side of the road.


A little while later, we came across a very large male elephant just on the side of the road dusting himself in red dirt to cool off. We parked on the side of the road for a few minutes, and he calmly watched us and ate some leaves off a tree. Then decided to take a few steps towards us. UG backed up our little Hyundai SUV, and he took a couple more steps towards us. UG backed up a little more. He took a couple more steps. Eventually, Elmer was walking casually down the middle of a 2 lane road, while UG backed up and prayed for no traffic behind him. I'll have to check the video I took during the whole event, but it felt like it lasted about 20 minutes before the elephant decided he found a tree he liked on the right side of the road and gave us enough space to pass him. We didn't spend too much time watching elephants after that.

Then we followed what seemed like hours of boring, flat, uninhabited terrain with nothing to see, and no reason to be only doing 50km/h. But just as we were contemplating ways to end our suffering, we came upon a stopped car who was photographing a couple of giraffe. Then a couple of minutes later, 5 rhino, a ways back of the road to the left. And a few minutes after that, 3 more on the right, much closer to the road.

And then we arrived at the camp with just a half hour to spare before they close the gate for the night, and we get fined for late entry. It took us about 5 1/2 hours to travel 140km, with the cruise control set at 49km/h and only stopping to look at animals. The camp itself is very rustic, and kind of disappointing. Before even getting to our "tent", we opted to get dinner in the restaurant. We have cooking facilities in the "tent", but we hadn't passed a grocery store in a few days, and we were just too tired. But the restaurant only has a buffet option, which is the worst buffet I have ever seen. For about $25/person, they offer terrible, fatty roast beef, chicken thighs and legs, potatoes, rice, pumpkin and beans. Period. There were 4 other desperate enough people there when we were there, and the camp is full (we booked in October!) so I figure they get maybe 10 people per night, and put out what they can with a $250 budget.

This morning, we went on the Kruger Park version of a game drive. In contrast to the soft knock on the door at 5:30am at EP, and 6:00 the jeep leaves (assuming everyone who's coming is onboard), here, we had to get ourselves up and get to a meeting point for 5:15, where we wait for the rangers to organize themselves to get on the road for 5:30. And instead of a driver and a tracker, we got one guy just driving. Then we drive the same roads we can drive ourselves on for most of the time. At least we get to leave the camp 30 minutes before the masses, but it's dark anyway. And the weather was terrible. Thick fog that condences on you and makes you wet while the wind whips through the open vehicle. About 30 minutes before we're supposed to be back at camp, he finally turns down a restricted road, basically just as a shortcut to getting back to camp.

Part way down the untravelled road, we get a flat tire. Our guide (ranger? driver?) gets out and stares at the front left tire. Finds a tool in the front seat, tries using it for a few minutes, then wanders off to find a stick in the bush to help him. Someone on the bus suggests he radio for help. Oh, we don't take a radio on the "game drive". UG and I don't have cell service, so we assume nobody does. The guide tells us all to stay put, he's going to walk up the road to try and find cell service. One guy speaks up and says he has service and offers his phone. So help is called. Yay! While we wait, our guide wanders off every now and then looking for something, then comes back and plays around with the few tools he has. Finally, my UberGeek gets out of the jeep and offers his help changing the tire. He gets the nuts off, but the jack is too small for the truck, so until help arrives, they play around, trying to get the front end jacked up. I'm in the truck terrified that we're about to see our first carnivore in Kruger, while my husband is outside the vehicle staring at the ground, or under the truck while our ranger stares at him. Shouldn't someone be watching for lions? I mean, someone who knows what to watch for like the spotter at EP? Although, they don't carry weapons on the game drives here either, so maybe they'd rather not know what's coming?

Finally help arrives in the form of one guy in a pickup truck, who at least brought a jack and knows how to use it. Nobody to stand guard, no weapons for protection, no vehicle big enough to take us all back to camp, just a guy and a jack. Thanks to my super awesome husband, we had a spare tire on a few minutes after help arrived and were on our way. I guess I should be impressed the spare wasn't flat.

Our "tent", while a bit scary when we finally found it after dark, is actually pretty cute. It's a canvas tent permantently mounted on a wooden deck, with a full concrete and tile bathroom attached. There's a fridge, sink and hot plate on the deck, with the fridge enclosed in a locking cage to keep the baboons out of your food, and a small fire pit hanging off the front. The deck over looks a very pretty river, and it's taken me a while to type this as I keep getting distracted by the hippos splashing on the far bank. For the most part, they stay submerged, only coming up to yawn or poop every now and then and then splash back down. There are probably more on my side of the river, too, but the grasses on the bank are too tall to see. You can hear them, though, as they grunt and snort all night long. A sleepy UG walked out onto the deck this morning and was startled by a grunt.

We are booked for a bush BBQ tonight. Another "game drive" followed by dinner under the stars. It sounded awesome and exciting when I booked it, but I am quite nervous now. I think I will verify before we go: do we have radios? do we have guns? do we have enough people who look like they are trained to use them? And I am off to buy some alcohol.