Johannesburg
I landed in Johannesburg where Blake was already waiting after arriving from Australia. We grabbed the hire car and took off towards the city to check in to our hostel in Maboneng and get oriented. Given that the hostel receptionist said our chances of being mugged while walking through the city were 50/50 we decided these were fair odds and went for a walk to check out some street markets and the view from the Carlton Centre, the tallest office building in South Africa.
Once outside the single trendy, safe and clean street that makes up the main part of Maboneng, the city flips a switch and the next streets and city blocks become much more like urban slums. Everything is in disrepair, streets and concrete broken up, buildings with mostly smashed in or boarded up windows, trash piled up along the roads and in any vacant space, occasionally piles of trash on fire as if this is how they dispose of their rubbish, shells and wrecks of cars, and just desperate looking people. We surreptitiously tucked away anything of value, Blake putting his phone and wallet in his underwear and made our cautious way through the city. Given its appearance and all the stories we had heard of car jackings and muggings, we had no problems as we wandered for a few hours other than a few strange looks as we obviously didn’t look like we belonged. After our walk around we hopped back in the car for a late afternoon drive. We ended up lost in Soweto and eventually finding the Orlando Towers before heading back to the hostel for an early night
The next day we were itching to get out and about and so left the hostel at 6:30am to go hike Klipriviersberg Nature Reserve. Only half an hour drive and we were ready to start the walk, beginning by cresting the western ridge before coming back down and heading over into the eastern side of the park. Over the eastern ridge we came across a small herd of zebra, wildebeest and springbok so we spent the next few hours sneaking through the bush and running across the hills, herding the animals around and trying to get close to them. The day of fun was only slightly tarnished by Blake and I getting separated and me having all the water. Needless to say, he was very dehydrated (and suffering slightly from heat stroke) by the time we met back at the car. Oops! The day was finished by meeting up with Bee and her bf for dinner and reminiscing about our Japan winter together.
Kruger National Park
After a day driving from Johannesburg we arrived at our accommodation in Marloth Park, a nature reserve bordering Kruger. We unpacked and went for a swim in the pool before sitting down for some lunch. As we sat outside, eating our lunch in the back garden of the hotel, three large male kudu decided to pay us a visit. It turns out that kudu do not like to eat lychees for lunch. Not long after we had a family of warthogs wander though the yard snuffling around for food as well. Late afternoon we went for a drive around Marloth Park to watch the sunset. Crocodile River is the border between Marloth Park and Kruger National Park and so we headed down from our side to see what animals were out for an afternoon drink. We quickly discovered that there are springbok, impala, kudu, ostrich, warthogs, zebra, monkeys and baboons all through the forest where we were staying and lots more animals such as buffalo, elephants and crocodiles at the river. We fed the monkeys from inside the car and got out and fed some beautiful zebras before heading home for dinner and an early night.
Our first proper day in Kruger National Park was with an organised tour, just to get our bearings and understand any rules of the park. They picked us up at 445am to arrive at the nearest entrance which was Crocodile Gate (voted one of the best entrances to the park). 530am we entered and within a few minutes we came across a group of 5 juvenile lions dozing spread out on the road. We pulled up alongside them and snapped some pictures and watched in awe as they started to slowly get up and pad their way off the road in search of some shade before the days heat began. Within the next 20 minutes we has seen 3 more of the Big 5, elephants, rhinos, buffalos with only the leopard unaccounted for so far. Needless to say, Kruger was not disappointing us even though we had barely been inside the park for half an hour. We spent the rest of the day exploring only a very small section of the southern part of the park around where we entered but we saw many animals in a variety of situations including elephants, giraffe, deer, kudu, rhino, tortoises, lions, hippos, hyenas, crocodiles, buffalo, baboons and many types of birds.
After we returned home to our hotel, Blake and I jumped back in our car and drove down to the edge of Marloth Park, where the sparse building ended and the river and Kruger began. We had a mishap with Blakes’ brand new drone the previous day so decided to go on an adventure and see if we would make amends. The next hour involved adrenaline induced elevated heart rates, an angry troop of baboons, some skilled tracking and a rescue before getting back in the car sweaty and dirty and heading home on sunset for a shower and dinner. It was an incredible first safari!!
The next two days we were awake early to arrive at the park entrance before they opened so we were one of the first cars inside. Two more fantastic days of driving around, exploring various areas of the park, even driving into some of the private reserve areas which yielded some incredible animal sightings. There were too many amazing sights and experiences to recount them all but some of the best included hundreds of hippos all vying for space in the river near a concrete weir, more lions including two adult males and a bunch more juveniles, herds of elephants, many with very young elephant calves, some younger than 2 months so they still walked funny and didn’t know how to control their trunk so it whipped around in the air with a mind of its own. A large herd of giraffes that were being stalked by lions, they had all squared up facing each other, the largest giraffes standing in front, the whole tower of giraffes bunching together to protect the small new-born babies in the middle, two adult rhinos with a juvenile resting at their side, overprotective elephants that wanted to charge the car (no damage done thanks to Blakes quick reversing skills) and a coalition of 4 cheetahs stalking a herd of deer. These cheetahs we managed to get within a few meters of as the stalked along the side of the road through the grass and then laid down to rest under a tree. Besides these outstanding animals, there were also many very close encounters with other giraffes, elephants, baboons, monkeys, lions and all sorts of other amazing African animals.
Our last night in Kruger we bought a bottle of Amarula Cream Liqueur which is like Baileys but made with the amarula fruit. We sat atop a huge wooden platform that was erected so high it sat above the tree canopy and the level of anything else in the forest and we sipped a glass if this while watching the sunset across this amazing part of the world.
