The World Odyssey

Today we were up at 5am to visit Kruger National Park. Kruger is the jewel in the South African crown and has an area equivalent in size to Wales. We arrived in the twilight before the gates opened at 6am, and we weren't even the first ones in line! R180 later and we were in the Phabeni gate.

Things started off pretty slowly with some distant antelope sightings during the first half an hour. Then we started to hit some rhythm and we'd soon ticked off giraffe, zebra, elephant, hippo, water buffalo and warthog. With the clock passing 9am we headed into the Skukuza rest complex for breakfast. We pulled up a table on the deck overlooking the Sabie River and settled in for hearty bacon and egg brekky, chatting about where we might find the remainder of the "Big 5": lions, rhinos and leopards. We were hopeful about the lions and Rhino's, but leopards are notoriously elusive.

As we looked out over the river a pair of otters hopped out of the long grass and slipped into the water. Moments later we saw why the otters were on the run...a leopard emerged onto the river bank!! Seemingly oblivious to the amazed onlookers, the leopard proceeded to stalk up the river tracking the pair of otters. We continued to look on in stunned excitement for about 5 minutes until the leopard disappeared out of view. Then we sat back down, drank our coffees and ate our breakfast. WOW!

We never did see a lion or rhino, but we did manage to see a lot of other things including baboons and even a pair of honey badgers! The funniest event of the day happened when a herd of elephants decided to lazily graze their way across the road. Naturally, you give way to something the size of an elephant, but a small hatchback that was at the front of the queue decided that it was in the way of their progress. As such, they disappeared around the corner (in the direction of the big matriarch elephant). Moments later, they reappeared going flat out in reverse. We were all in stitches! HAHA.

In our quest to find the remaining Big 5 we had driven a fair way from our park entry gate. There are significant fines for exiting the park after closure, and even bigger problems if you get caught inside. We didn't have internal accommodation and soon realised that we had to make a move. Basically we would have to cover the same distance we'd done all day in the remaining 90 minutes. The race was on! Now covering 60ish km's in over an hour wouldn't typically be that hard, but Kruger is basically a zoo with no fences...and some VERY big animals. We made good progress until dusk, with a few stops for animal crossings including a cool pair of hyenas. Then it became dark, which was an extra problem since the low beam lights on Penny's car didn't work.

Now it turned from car-racing to heart-racing. We eventually made it to the gate with about 10 minutes to spare before the 6pm deadline, but the ordeal wasn't done just yet. The security guard was threatening to lock us in unless we paid the "late fee", which we assumed would end up straight in his pocket. We assumed we were in the right so we started arguing, unleashing Penny who instinctively went into her professional IR mode. After a heated back and forth, we were eventually let through. We later found out that the guard was in the right, and the gate was supposed to close at 5:30pm. We'd been 20 minutes late...oops...

To save time we had exited through a different gate, which put us a long way from our lodge in Hazyview. By now it was totally dark and we had to juggle between useless fog lamps and blinding high beams depending on traffic. Now it had gone from heart-racing to heart-stopping. We had to find a road which was unlit and not well marked, then dodge pedestrians (yep, lots of black African people, in black African clothes, on a black African night) as well as other similarly unroadworthy vehicles. After 30 minutes of luck, arse, fluke and swearing we finally made it back to our bungalow. It was time for a beer and a change of pants. Another end to another exciting day.Read more