Kruger National Park, Redux

Jeff and I got back to Johannesburg from our Cape Town road trip on Wednesday, 11th April. I spent the next day in the office, and Jeff worked on a report for his grant on his laptop at my house. That evening I went to Colleen and Ralph’s to borrow some camping gear, since all of my gear is in storage in Birmingham.

We left on Friday morning for the 4 hour drive to Nelspruit, and then almost another hour to Crocodile Bridge Gate and rest camp.

As I’ve mentioned earlier, Jeff has recently finished six months in Nairobi, Kenya, where he was gathering and analyzing data for his doctoral dissertation in public health. Financially, what this means is that he’s been living on a grant, and he hasn’t had any other source of income. So, in order to keep expenses to a minimum, we decided to do tent camping in Kruger.

Our first stop was Crocodile Bridge Gate and rest camp. Late in the afternoon, we crossed the Crocodile River. Before driving on to the gate and camp, we decided to stop and take a look into the river. I pulled the car over to the side of the road, got out and walked over to the river. Another car passed us, and I noticed that the registration plate on the car was Mozambique, but I didn’t think anything about that. A moment later, I heard a voice say, “Katy.”

“Hmm,” I thought. “Funny that there’s another Katy around.” I turned around and saw my friend Erin Branigan walking towards me.

Erin was a founding member of the Greater Birmingham Returned Peace Corps Volunteers (GBRPCVs), if not THE founding member. She moved to Seattle about 2 ½ years ago to take a job in the University of Washington’s school of public health. Initially, she was managing an AIDS-related project in Namibia, but recently took a different job managing a similar project in Mozambique. I’ve seen her in Jo’burg a couple of times as she was en route to Maputo. And I knew that she would be in Maputo while Jeff and I were at Kruger. I even knew that she and her colleagues were planning a trip to Kruger for the weekend. We had tried to work out our schedules so that we could meet for breakfast or tea or something, but we couldn’t seem to make it work. Oh, well, too bad, so we planned to see each other when she was stopped in Jo’burg on her return trip.

Even so, I was still shocked and startled to see her here on the road into the park. We hugged, chatted for a few minutes, and they moved on. They were staying at Lower Sabie rest camp, at least another 45 minutes away, and camp gates close at 18.00.

Jeff and I got registered and went to choose our camp site. Crocodile Bridge is one of the smaller camps, and because we were so late in getting there, most of the spots were taken. We finally settled on a place, but during our search, we noticed that the “permanent tents” were really quite swank – for tents. They were all up on platforms, had beds and fans inside, and a small (but bigger than dorm-size) refrigerator on the front porch. Wow! I had been wondering about the efficacy of the sleeping pad that Colleen and Ralph had lent me -- even the luxury Therma-rest that I bought for car camping at Merlefest doesn’t always pad these middle-aged bones enough, and the Mills’ was much thinner than that one. So, I went to the park office to see if we could upgrade. Shame, all those tents were reserved for the night. Could we upgrade at our other camps on Saturday and Sunday nights? Satara, the Saturday night camp, doesn’t have permanent tents, but Letaba does, and we were able to get one for Sunday night. Yay!

So, we (mostly Jeff) pitched the tent in our chosen spot in the dusk. We were situated right next to the perimeter fence, and while we were working, I heard birds and other animals start making a racket. And then I heard – I’m positive I heard – a growl. Lion! The other campers confirmed by rushing to the fence with their big, powerful torches (that’s flashlights to you Americans), but the lion had moved on. Still, it was kind of thrilling.

We had a decent meal – leftover roast chicken in a pot with chopped up vegetables and chicken Ramen noodles – drank some wine, tried to view stars but it was too cloudy, and went to sleep.

The camp gates open at 6.00, so we got up early, Jeff made coffee, we packed up, and headed out around 6.20. Early morning is one of the best times for game viewing, and we wanted to see as much as we could. We’d been on the road for maybe 10 or 15 minutes, when we saw a bunch of cars pulled over on the main road, and on another dust road to the left. Gotta be something good, so we pulled over, too.

IT WAS A PRIDE OF LIONS!!!

This was my fourth trip to Kruger, and I hadn’t seen any lions yet. On my first trip, we saw a leopard, but I had only a brief look at her before she loped away. This was a group of 7 or 8 lions, just lounging around in the morning sun. I was so excited!!! We watched from that vantage point, then followed the dust road around and up to a small hill. We were lucky to get a “first row” spot, right next to the edge of the turnaround, because it turned out that was where the lions walked past. They were less than 15 feet away, I think. There were several females, including one with a wound in her side. We think maybe she’d been gored by morning breakfast. There was also at least one young cub, and a young male (I think he was young because his mane wasn’t so very big). They filed past us, one by one, and we took pictures like crazy. Unfortunately, my camera doesn’t have a great zoom. I have GOT to get a better camera! All told, we probably watched those lions for about thirty minutes.

It was a superb start to a super day. We saw all of the so-called Big Five that day – rhino, buffalo, leopard, elephant and lion – except for a leopard.

Here was one of the highlights of the day. It was getting on lunchtime, and we decided to take a side road to a picnic spot. (It is forbidden to get out of your vehicle in KNP, except in designated areas.) As we were traveling along this road, Jeff said, “I wanna see a herd of elephants.” We’d seen one or two here and there, but Jeff wanted to see a whole bunch of them. Just moments later, we came to a couple of cars parked in the road, and they were watching a herd of elephants! There were about 14 of them, and we watched quite awhile as they grazed, and finally crossed the road in front of us, heading on to whatever their destination was.

We carried on to the picnic spot, which was up on top of a hill, overlooking a small dam (lake). As we sat there, putting together sandwiches of cheese and avocado, Jeff spotted the same herd of elephants crossing the plain to the dam just below us. They’d picked up friends along the way, and they now numbered about 25. We watched as they walked up to the water’s edge, and they all stood there, in a row, drinking. Then they began to swim across the dam, and walk on into the bush on that side. A couple of younger ones stayed behind to play in the water for awhile, splashing each other and monkeying around. Jeff saw one of them push another one down. They were having fun. Then the mom came along and told them to quit their foolishness and come along.

It was so cool to see all this!

Another neat thing we saw later in the day was an enormous herd of buffalo. There were hundreds and hundreds of them. I’d never seen so many at one time.

We got to Satara before sunset, pitched the tent, and made another camp dinner. We were again camped right next to the perimeter fence. One thing that disturbed both of us quite a lot was that the campers next to us threw stuff over (or through) the fence in order to attract hyenas. And it worked. Several of them slinked forward to pick up whatever had been thrown their way, as the offenders shone their torches on them. Not only is this against the rules, but it’s very bad for the animals. If they become dependent on human food/refuse, they can become aggressive in seeking it out. And then they have to be shot. We were pretty angry about this behavior on the part of our camping neighbors, and I think Jeff really wanted to go say something to them. But they were drinking, and we didn’t want to get into a fight.

The next day, Sunday, was another good day, though nothing as dramatic as the lions, elephant herd or buffalo. We stopped at the Olifants rest camp for lunch. The camp itself is fantastic. It’s situated all along a high ridge that overlooks the Olifants River. The huts and cottages are very nice, and there’s a nice overlook area with plenty of benches. We saw loads of hippos in the river below. However, the surrounding area that you drive through to get there is not all that pretty, so I won’t be putting this camp on my list of places to try.

We seemed to be around rivers a lot this day, and so saw lots of hippos. At the beginning of the day, I couldn’t tell a hippo from a big rock, but by the end of the day, with Jeff’s help, I could spot them easily.

One of the things that I haven’t mentioned yet is birds. I discovered, on my first trip to Kruger, that there are as many cool, interesting and/or beautiful birds as mammals. So, I always try to remember to look up, as well as out. Here are some of the birds we saw during this trip: African fish eagle, African hoopoe, blue waxbill, Burchell's coucal, glossy Cape starling, Cape turtle dove, Egyptian goose, emerald-spotted wood-dove, giant kingfisher, goliath heron, grey heron, grey lourie, southern ground hornbill, yellow-billed hornbill, red-billed hornbill, helmeted guineafowl, Jacobin cuckoo, lappet-faced vulture, lilac breasted roller, Natal francolin, pearl-spotted owlet, red-billed oxpecker, saddle-billed stork, marabou stork, Wahlberg’s eagle, white-backed vulture, woodland kingfisher, giant kingfisher.

We arrived at Letaba, our last camp of the trip, early enough to get settled in and then go for a swim. Well, Jeff walked around the camp, and I went for a swim. It had been a pretty hot day, and that pool felt so good! It’s a fairly new pool, and big enough to do a few strokes before running into a wall, but not big enough for real exercise. Still, it felt good to be moving my limbs. Driving through Kruger is wonderful and exciting, but you’re still cooped up in a car most of the time.

Of all the camps we stayed in, and ones that I’ve visited on other trips, this one is my favorite. It is just above the banks of the Letaba River, and the camp is full of trees, so it’s very shady.

We stopped at the camp store the next morning for ice, and saw a small group of folks pointing into a tree. Turns out that it was a puff adder lounging on a limb. He was so well camouflaged that I don’t know how anyone ever spotted him in the first place. We left for Johannesburg, going along the Mpumalanga Panoramic Route. We stopped to see the Three Rondavels, rock formations that look like traditional rondavel huts. They are part of the Blyde River Canyon Nature Reserve.

A strange, and strangely terrifying, thing happened on the road to God’s Window. I’d been seeing plumes of smoke from afar, and assumed that there was a bush fire somewhere. As we turned into the road to God's Window, I saw a sign that said something about fire (I don’t remember now what the words were), but because it was on a pre-printed sign, I figured that it was a controlled fire. And sure enough, we saw workers around on the sides of the road. But as we approached, the smoke got thicker and thicker, until finally I couldn’t see more than a foot or two in front of the car. And we could definitely feel the heat from the fire to our left, and hear the crackling of the flames. I don’t know why it scared me so much – I’ve been in fog that thick before -- but I was truly terrified. I didn’t know if I should keep going, or try to turn around and go back to the main road. Jeff advised me to carry on, and we soon reached the end of the smoke that was billowing over the road. We even stopped and got out to take some pictures, but I was still nervous.

We went on to God’s Window, which is a view point with a beautiful vista of the lowveld below. Sadly, clouds had settled around the top and we couldn’t see much of anything. We then drove on a short way to the Pinnacle, a tall rock formation that juts out in the middle of a slot canyon. There’s a little waterfall at the back end of the canyon, and Jeff and I walked around to it. I hadn’t seen the waterfall before, so that was a treat. We drove on to Graskop, where we stopped at Harrie’s Pancakes for lunch, then on to Pilgrim’s Rest, through Lydenbug, Dullstroom and Belfast, then back on the N4 and on to Johannesburg. It was a very satisfactory trip.