Kruger National Park

At 7 am after breakfast I met my Nomad tour group. Cardi is our tour guide, Asi is our training guide and cook and Shorty is our driver. There are 10 girls on the trip from Germany, England, Switzerland and Denmark. We have a truck with twelve seats that all recline and can twist towards the window which is going to be very handy for animal spotting. We arrived at Kruger National Park around 3pm after stopping off at a few stops on our way. Nkambeni camp is going to be our home for the next three nights. The camp is at the edge of Kruger National Park but it is surrounded by a wire fence so the animals can roam around the park normally without coming into our camp. I am sleeping in my own lodge for this leg of the trip. After getting set up in our cabins I went outside my cabin door to see an elephant walk along the fence perimeter. It was wonderful to see the elephant calmly going about it's business.

That evening we went on a sunset game drive which just means a sunset safari. Unfortunately the clouds hid the sunset however we came across monkeys heading to their sleeping spot, zebra, snakes and more elephants. It certainly gave me a satisfying sneak peak of safari life.

Next morning we were up at 5am to depart in a 4x4 on our safari drive. Jason our tour guide was excellent and explained how the camp allow nature to work as naturally as possible. They do not track animals unless the vets are monitoring the animals for data purposes. The vets do not intervene if they see an injured animals unless the animal was injured as a result of human involvement. Sometimes the park organise controlled fires in order to allow tall grasses to die and smaller grasses to grow. This means that grazing animals such as elephants, zebra and giraffe keep moving around the park instead of eating in one area and destroying crops.

We learned that the white rhino's population is in decline due to poaching. Poachers kill rhinos to take their horn which is then used in Chinese medicine. There was a very large decline in rhinos over the last ten years so the government decided to dehorn the rhinos in Kruger Park to try and stop poaching in the park.

There was one special moment where we spotted a male elephant in the road in front of us. The elephant proceeded towards us before stopping right beside our 4x4. No one said a word and our hearts stopped while we waited to see what the elephant would do. He looked into our 4x4 for a minute before walking on. The next minute we saw two smaller male elephants following him down the road however they passed slightly further away from the truck. This was a breathtaking moment that I will never forget.

Throughout the day we saw a wide variety of animals in the distance such as lions, ostriches, wild dogs, waterbuck antelopes, rhinos lying in mud bath, giraffe and zebra. It was a very special day and one I will not forget easily.En savoir plus