Kruger Park, South Africa

We arrived in Johannesburg after over 48 hours of travel since Alaska. We picked up a sim, found my backpack (which I had lost) and then found our rental car. The drive out to Kruger was about 4 hours and was an easy drive to the park. We were staying in an Airbnb in Marloth Park which is about half an hour to the entrance of Kruger. We were excited about this accomodation as there was plenty of wildlife in the advertisement. But when we got to the house we saw our backyard was full of impala and wildebeest! A few minutes later, a huge group of zebra came to visit!! We were so excited!

The next day, we had planned an easy day with only a sunset safari booked. Mum and I headed down the road to grab a morning coffee. Just as we were walking, I looked up and saw a huge giraffe in the middle of the road in front of me! We followed the giraffe and saw a group of them eating from the trees. They were more timid than the other animals but we still got quite close to see them very well. After coffee, we headed into the closest town to grab some food and supplies and mum and I did some clothes shopping (it’s so cheap here!!). In the afternoon we headed to Kruger park to start our sunset safari. The trip started off slowly and we didn’t have many sighting for the first half an hour. Just as it was getting dark, our guide was alerted to a kill, where a pride of lions were eating a buffalo. We headed over and saw around 15 lions pulling apart a buffalo. It was amazing to see the bloody cats and hear their growls as the ate. The lions didn’t mind that we were there and our truck sat around 15 meters from the kill. Also on the safari, we saw elephants drinking from a waterhole, a heard of buffalo and we glimpsed a leopard slinking through the bushes.

The next day was our first full day of self driving in the park. But before we left the house, we were greeted again by a few zebras who had stopped by for breakfast. We arrived at Crocodile Bridge Gate at 6am and were one of the first to enter the park. Our first sighting was a larger group of giraffes grazing on tree tops. Before breakfast, we saw some elephants in the distance. We had breakfast at a lodge on the river, where we had a great view of a huge group of hippos. After breakfast, we came across a traffic jam. We shortly realised that there was a family of lions on the road. Somehow we got to the front of the cars and spent a good amount of time driving right behind and beside two lionesses and a cub. It was a very cool experience! For the rest of the afternoon we saw plenty more animals, including a close up of an elephant, hyenas and eagles.

The following day I woke up early and looked out the window. Just in front of the porch, there were a group of giraffes feasting in our trees!! We headed back into the park after breakfast. Due to our later start, there was less game around. We still saw lots of giraffes, zebra, elephants and buffalo. After lunch we had a close encounter with a group of elephants who were not impressed with us driving so close to them. We came face to face with a huge elephant walking towards us. We reversed quickly which seemed to diffuse the situation. The highlight of the day came in the late afternoon when we came across another huge traffic jam. We asked around and found out that there was a family of cheetahs which we could easily see through our binoculars. Spectacular!Read more