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South Africa 2023
  • Nicole Barten
  • Matthew Koen

South Africa 2023

Our 37 day roadtrip through Limpopo, Mpumalanga and KwaZulu Natal Read more
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  • Trip start
    November 23, 2023
    South Africa 2023

    Our story continues...

    November 19, 2023 in the Netherlands ⋅ 🌬 12 °C

    After a difficult year of being apart from each other while working towards the partnership visa that would make it possible for Matthew to come to the Netherlands, we now decided we couldn't wait any longer so I will fly back to South Africa this upcoming Thursday! 😄This time I will fly to Johannesburg from where we will rent a car on Friday morning and drive straight to Kruger National Park for our first week. Almost everything is packed now although Castor is not agreeing on that, seems like he wants to come with us on our trip instead of staying home with the cat sitters 😹 more updates will follow soon.Read more

  • South Africa 2023

    The trip is now really about to start 😄

    November 23, 2023 in the Netherlands ⋅ 🌬 13 °C

    Finally the trip is about to start! Now waiting until boarding starts for the flight to Paris that departs at 17:55 and then from there I will fly to Johannesburg where I'll arrive at 9:30 local time (8:30 Dutch time). I can't wait to be reunited with Matthew again and for this amazing roadtrip ahead of us 😄Read more

  • South Africa 2023

    Johannesburg - Hazyview

    November 24, 2023 in South Africa ⋅ ☀️ 28 °C

    Friday morning after arriving at the airport and collecting the rental car I drove straight to Midrand to the bus station to pick up Matthew and from there we drove straight to our accommodation in Hazyview. After a long flight/busride and 5 hour car drive we arrived safely at Tsamatiku Villa Guesthouse where we will stay for the first 6 nights and is only a 4 minute drive away from the Phabeni gate at Kruger. Tomorrow the first day in the park, it's hot but I'm sure we will still see plenty of wildlife. Updates and photos will follow soon.Read more

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    Kruger National Park day 1

    November 25, 2023 in South Africa ⋅ ☀️ 30 °C

    After sleeping in a bit we went into Krugerpark. For this first day we saw quite a few animals. At the end of the day we also saw a leopard next to the road but that was being surrounded by multiple game drive vehicles and then unfortunately disappeared in the bush so unfortunately no picture but we will keep looking for the big cats. I will upload some more pictures in a second post.Read more

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    Kruger National Park day 1 - part 2

    November 25, 2023 in South Africa ⋅ ☀️ 37 °C

    Another set of photos and videos from our first day in Kruger, pictures of the second day and after will follow in seperate posts.

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    Kruger National Park day 2

    November 26, 2023 in South Africa ⋅ ⛅ 35 °C

    Today we went into the park early (6am) and were lucky enough to see a lot of animals again. While we were driving back towards the gate later in the afternoon, we saw a car stopped on a bridge and according to the occupants, they saw a leopard kill and drag an impala up a tree. This definitely will be a place to go back to tomorrow. Our search for the elusive leopard continues...
    Some more photos will follow in a separate post since we can only add 20 photos at a time.    Read more

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    Kruger National Park day 3

    November 27, 2023 in South Africa ⋅ ☀️ 35 °C

    This morning Matthew didn't feel well and stayed in bed for a few more hours so I decided to go into the park alone. As luck would have it, the car got a flat tyre while I was all by myself. Fortunately, a kind Kruger staff member offered assistance and fitted the spare. After 2 hours in the park, I returned to Matthew to check up on him. We both spent most of the day driving around trying to get the flat tyre replaced. After some struggle, we got it replaced and returned to the park together for a couple more hours.Read more

  • South Africa 2023
    1Try and find the cheetahs

    Kruger National Park day 4

    November 28, 2023 in South Africa ⋅ ☀️ 38 °C

    Today we had quite an interesting moment upon entering the park. Just a few minutes after entering the park, we were stopped by a military police patrol, luckily it was a routine a check and we had nothing to fear. We're clearly becoming quite well known at the park, as a few staff easily recognise us at this point, making us feel right at home. Today was also quite the occasion, since we saw our first lions and even two cheetahs laying low in some shade, making them hard to spot.Read more

  • South Africa 2023

    Kruger National Park day 5

    November 29, 2023 in South Africa ⋅ 🌧 27 °C

    On our 5th day, Nicole once again entered the park without me for 2 hours since the malaria medication makes me horribly sick, which is rather unfortunate yet still way better than actually having malaria. She did however spot some hyenas and lions, making her solo trip quite worth it. After picking me up at the guesthouse, we entered the park and continued our search for these magnificent beasts. Not long after entering the park, the weather started to turn a bit, bringing some much needed rain to the area, definitely a welcome sight after the scorching hot days prior. The lions seemed to love this, as they couldn't be bothered and just continued sleeping, typical cats. One more lovely day, many more lovely memories.Read more

  • South Africa 2023

    Kruger National Park - Sabie

    November 30, 2023 in South Africa ⋅ ☁️ 27 °C

    Today wasn't a particularly eventful day in Kruger, rather jarring as a matter of fact, so around 10am we decided to leave the park and head towards the Malelane gate to the south. Given that the road was an absolute tyre-killer, the 62km drive to the gate took quite long, as we had to be careful, as to not get another flat. After exiting the park, we got some groceries in the town of Malelane and headed towards Sabie. The route to Sabie made up for the lack of activity in the park as the route is very scenic. We met our host Arien and immediately fell in love with the room and the yard. Nicole acquainted herself with the doggies, and I made us some lovely dinner. We feel right at home here. Tomorrow we will do some sight-seeing in the area.Read more

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    Panoramaroute

    December 1, 2023 in South Africa ⋅ ☀️ 25 °C

    Unfortunately Matthew again wasn't feeling well this morning (we think about covid now because of loss of taste and smell) and I stayed with him for a few hours but eventually still decided to at least go have a look at some of the beautiful waterfalls along the panoramaroute. I went to the MacMac falls and then back to the accommodation check up on Matthew after stopping at the pharmacy to get him something for the nausea and some rehydration powder. And later I still drove to Graskop en visited the Graskop Gorge Lift. Here you can get into the forest using a lift to actually go a level down and kind of get into a whole different world. It was a beautiful walk through that forest with a lot of information about the plants and trees along the walkway. From there I also had a beautiful view on the waterfall. On the way back to the accommodation I still made a quick visit to Pilgrim's rest which is a former mining town. Luckily that evening Matthew was feeling better and started cooking dinner for us. We chatted a bit with our host and when Mathew said he had to check up on the food Arien, our host just called him a dream man, that's something I can only confirm, my dream man 🥰
    Tomorrow we will do some more sightseeing along the panoramaroute on our way towards our next accommodation in Tzaneen.    Read more

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    Panoramaroute day 2

    December 2, 2023 in South Africa ⋅ ☀️ 28 °C

    This morning we left Sabie and drove towards Tzaneen. We still visited several places on the panoramaroute. Our first stop was Gods Window where, after a short walk, we could enjoy a magnificent view from several viewpoints. From there we drove another 10 minutes to the Lisbon falls which also were definitely worth a visit. After those we only still had 2 big highlights on the route to visit, "Bourke's Luck Potholes" (the road to that place didn't even have too many potholes like the name would suggest) and a stop at "three rondavels" from where we had an incredible view over the Blyde River Canyon and also an amazing view on the 3 round mountains to which the name "three rondavels" refers. What incredible views! We arrived in Tzaneen between 15:00 and 16:00, not the nicest town, but atleast the accommodation was lovely. Matthew has seemingly taken on my method of cleaning plates, oops.Read more

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    Tzaneen - Munati lodge

    December 3, 2023 in South Africa ⋅ ☀️ 35 °C

    This morning we left Tzaneen and started driving towards Musina. Since we were passing Louis Trichardt where I stayed for 5 months in 2017 we thought it would be nice to make a short stop there to get groceries at the mall I always used to go to during my internship. The place changed quite a bit and I recognized less than I expected but it was still a nice big mall to get groceries. We arrived at our next accommodation around 14:00 and since it was a hot day, after checking in we immediately changed into our swimwear and enjoyed some time at the pool. Since the place was running on solar power which could run out after sunset, Matthew wanted to get started early on the food while I could still lay in the sun for a while and enjoy the company of a beautiful Kingfisher. Unfortunately already shortly after 17:00 the electricity stopped working, luckily the food was almost ready and actually still tasted really good. Except for the lack of electricity this is definitely a nice place.Read more

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    Mapungubwe national park

    December 4, 2023 in South Africa ⋅ ☀️ 38 °C

    The idea of staying at Munati lodge was that it was relatively "close" (still about an hour drive) to Mapungubwe national park. I had been there back in 2017 and thought to remember it was quite a nice park. Unfortunately things changed quite a bit since then and the maintenance wasn't too good anymore. Another quite unpleasant surprise was that there was no petrol station in the park eventhough it was noted on their website. This resulted in having to drive another 70 km to the petrol station in Alldays of which we drove the last 60 km on the reserve tank of the car. The moment we arrived at that petrol station was incredibly relieving because we really weren't sure if the car would make it. Next to the car being so low on fuel that road was also full of potholes making those 70 km a real challenge. After the relief from reaching the petrol station we got a delicious homemade milkshake because funnily enough I remembered the little shop next to the petrol station from back in 2017 when we stranded there with both cars of Lajuma with flat tyres. After this quite unplanned start of the day we eventually managed to get into Mapungubwe. We did see some wildlife (view elephants far away, zebra and wildebeest) but honestly it was a bit disappointing and we got really confused by seeing cows and donkeys in what was supposed to be a big 5 game reserve. After we drove the full loop once, we asked at the entrance gate if it was normal we saw this little wildlife, they said they made an opening in the fence meaning animals could walk freely in and out of the park and just cross the border to Botswana, this also explained the cows and donkeys being present in the park. All in all quite a disappointing visit but definitely not a bad day. We jokingly call Mapungubwe a farm instead of a National park from now on.Read more

  • South Africa 2023

    Munati Lodge - Polokwane

    December 5, 2023 in South Africa ⋅ ☀️ 32 °C

    This morning we checked out quite late since it was a relatively short drive to Polokwane. We didn't really had plans here and since we were a bit early for check in we drove around the neighborhood for a while and stopped at a park for a bit. After checking in at the accommodation we just rested a little bit and started working on the visa papers. Not the most fun thing to do but we both know what we are doing it for at least. After supper we still walked for about 10 minutes to a small city Spar to get another loaf of bread. The neighborhood this accommodation is in feels very safe which is why we took the opportunity to have a short walk after supper just before it was getting dark. Tomorrow we will drive to Dinokeng game reserve where we will stay in a tented camp within the big 5 game reserve so I feel like that is going to be the highlight of our trip but more about that will follow soon.Read more

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    Dinokeng game reserve (Bushbabies Lodge)

    December 6, 2023 in South Africa ⋅ ☁️ 32 °C

    After checking out at the accommodation in Polokwane we started driving towards Dinokeng game reserve. Despite an accident on the highway that caused a little bit of a delay we still arrived relatively early at the gate of the reserve and after paying the conservation fee and a self-drive permit for the next day we could enter the reserve and drive to our accommodation. We got a very warm and enthousiastic welcome and felt immediately at home. The tent is really nice and cosy and equipped with everything we needed and private bathroom and kitchen facilities right next to the tent. We enjoyed sitting in front of our tent for a while enjoying an ice lolly from the honesty bar and just enjoyed the view and tranquility of the place. Just before sunset we decided to take a stroll around the camp and while we were walking we saw giraffes walking right on the other side of the fence, it really has something special having the possibility of seeing these animals from the comfort of your own tent. The sunset was stunning and the sky was full of stars which made the bush experience even better.Read more

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    Dinokeng game reserve

    December 7, 2023 in South Africa ⋅ ⛅ 30 °C

    Today we went for a self-drive in the reserve. There is definitely quite a lot of animal activity in the reserve. We already knew that the leopard that we were still looking for wasn't going to be very likely to find since Barend (the owner of the lodge) told us that the lions in the reserve are quite dominant and kill the leopards and cheetahs sometimes out of competition. There aren't a lot of high trees in the reserve so a leopard or cheetah can't really get away from those lions. We still saw quite a lot of other animals though with as highlight I'd say the rhino's. Later that evening while we were preparing our food at the braai the rhino's visited us again. Tonight we ate a traditional South African dish, potjie. This were 2 small cast iron pots in which we could prepare the food they arranged for us above the fire. We had chicken and lamb and lots of different veggies and spices. While Matthew was preparing our food I was watching the waterhole and meanwhile writing a bit for the blog. The food was definitely amazing and eating it next to the fire with a view on the waterhole where animals could come to visit anytime really made the experience complete and so far we would definitely say this was the highlight of our trip.Read more

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    Dinokeng game reserve - Thabazimbi

    December 8, 2023 in South Africa ⋅ ☀️ 35 °C

    Unfortunately this morning it was already time to leave Dinokeng again and start driving towards our next accommodation close to Marakele National Park. While we were packing we still saw some warthogs behind the fence visiting the waterhole. We didn't rush too much since we didn't really want to leave this place. After one last short drive through the reserve towards the gate we were quite soon back on the highway to drive towards Thabazimbi. We arrived at the farm shortly after 15:00 and after meeting our host and unpacking the car we took a bit of a stroll around the far, enjoyed the view and befriended the Ostrich. Laurette, our host, said the Ostrich loved the small tomatoes that were growing in the garden so she was clearly used to being fed by guests and was hanging around the gate to the guesthouse regularly.Read more

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    Marakele National Park

    December 9, 2023 in South Africa ⋅ ☁️ 29 °C

    Today we went to Marakele National Park. Eventhough the big 5 is present here, it is more known for the scenery. Didn't spot the big 5 but still quite a few animals. Around 14:00 we left the park because of a big lightning and thunderstorm with a lot of rain and since the road to the farm where we're staying is a dirt road we didn't want to take the risk that the road would become inaccessible because of the rain which could turn it into a mudstream.Read more

  • South Africa 2023

    Thabazimbi - Middelburg

    December 10, 2023 in South Africa ⋅ 🌧 20 °C

    We spent half the day travelling from Thabazimbi to Middelburg, the most memorable thing that happened on the road had to be the mention of a flying saucer on one of the electronic roadworks signs: whether this was true or just to attract attention, it was nonetheless quite an interesting thing to see. Our host Linda was such a sweet lady, immediately insisting on hugging us both upon arrival. We felt so at home in her house, as her family was very welcoming and made us feel like part of the family. We spent most of the rest of the day watching Friends on Netflix. Just a cozy, rainy, lazy day.Read more

  • South Africa 2023

    Middelburg - Piet Retief

    December 11, 2023 in South Africa ⋅ 🌧 21 °C

    Today was another travel day. We are on our way to St. Lucia but since that is a very long distance we broke it up in 3 days which is why we yesterday spent the night in Middelburg and tonight we're staying in Piet Retief. Just like yesterday it has has been raining all day, in fact, ever since it started raining on Saturday afternoon, it never stopped. We can't complain about the rain though since we've been in the car all day anyways and this country really needs the rain. At arrival in Piet Retief we found out there was no electricity while there wasn't supposed to be loadshedding. Apparently there was a big power outage for pretty much the whole day and no one knew when it would come back. Somewhere around 17:30 it suddenly did come back and then we had supper and watched Netflix and got up to date with this blog.Read more

  • South Africa 2023

    Piet Retief - Kwambonambi

    December 12, 2023 in South Africa ⋅ ☁️ 22 °C

    We spent the first half of this day traveling to Kwambonambi, the drive was quite stressful as there were a very large amount of trucks carrying coal, not to mention the potholes required constant vigilance. Arriving at our accommodation finally brought some much needed peace, our hosts are a lovely elderly couple with two very cute dogs. We had some nice supper and spent some time with the doggies aswell. Tomorrow we'll find a new adventure to go on!Read more

  • South Africa 2023
    12Matthew surprised me with a very nice lunch made with love 🥰

    Aloe house

    December 14, 2023 in South Africa ⋅ ☀️ 34 °C

    Today and yesterday we've been having 2 rest days at this beautiful, peaceful accommodation. Rusty and Di, our hosts are so friendly and welcoming and really make us feel at home. Yesterday it's been a bit of a rainy day but today was warm and sunny so we enjoyed quite some time at the pool and a lovely braai and are now still enjoying the fire.
    Tomorrow we are planning on leaving early to visit the Hluhluwe-Imfolozi park.    Read more

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    Hluhluwe - iMfolozi park - part 1

    December 15, 2023 in South Africa ⋅ ☁️ 27 °C

    Today we got up early and went to Hluhluwe - iMfolozi park. This is the oldest proclaimed reserve in Africa. This park is particularly special because of the conservation of both the black and white rhino. In this park the white rhino population in Southern Africa was brought back from the brink of extinction. Interesting fact: every single southern white rhino population in the world has its genetic origin in Hluhluwe - iMfolozi park. Next to the rhino there, all other animals of the big 5 and more are present here as well so for us another chance to find the leopard but today the leopard was just again proving how elusive he is. Still absolutely worth the visit to this beautiful park though where we did see a lot of other animals and also some we had not or not seen much in the other parks so far and this park was completely different than the others as well, lots of open plains and much more water with actually the iMfolozi river flowing through the reserve.Read more

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