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This is our first trip to South Africa completely on our own. Will we survive as we leave Marloth Park and travel all the way through the Kruger National park, along the panoramic route and then back again. Read more
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  • Misadventures Of WandaSouth Africa Solo
    Day 10

    Kruger Day 4- Letaba Camp day 2

    March 11 in South Africa ⋅ ☁️ 30 °C

    We were up at 4:45am before the monkeys and before most of the birds. It was still dark and while I made coffee for us we could hear the hyena in the distance.
    We left camp at 5:30am as soon as the gate opened and unlike Satara camp the roads here were dead quiet.
    The bush off the roadside was so thick we wouldn’t have seen a pride of lions further than 20foot away so we didn’t hold out much hope of spotting anything.
    Our original plan was to leave the tar road and take the gravel track down to Englegurt dam and viewpoint as we turned onto the gravel we passed a huge open space with a massive watering hole and except for an elephant it was empty.
    Halfway down the bush was so thick I just decided to turn around and head back to camp. We’d both felt we’d waisted our time coming to this camp because you can’t see anything unless it crosses the road.
    Just as we approached the junction of the tar road we came to the watering hole we had passed just 10 minutes before and this time it was teeming with animals.
    There were whole herds of Zebra and Wilderbeast and even Buffalo. As we sat and watched the Zebra tussling in the dirt with each other a Jackel came down from the bush had a drink and then ran back. Then the buffalo came.
    We must have spent 90 minutes just at the watering hole watching the animals and there hierarchy. Finally some warthog turned up. These were the first warthog we’d seen since entering the park.
    We left the watering hole at 9:15 and headed back to camp passing 2 tortoise in the road and we also had our first sighting of Hartebeest. All in all it was a good morning.
    By 10am we were back at our camp and we made a nice breakfast of cheese and tomato Brai roll toasted with the pie iron, then we headed over to the restaurant to use there Wi-Fi and have a couple of beers.
    Our original trip consisted of leaving the park for a day and travelling up the panoramic route but after speaking to the South Africans in the pool the other day who said it is a dangerous route we’ve changed our minds. We also had a day booked at another camp called Skukuza but we headed to reception and asked them to change some dates for us. Tomorrow we were already heading back to Satara, then Skukuza, then out of the park to the chubby pig and then back to Satara. We asked reception to change our bookings so we arrived at Satara tomorrow and then stayed there, Cancelling everything else and leaving Satara on the 17th giving us 5 days at Satara camp which is less messing about with the tent and moving about.
    With reception sorting out the rest of our stay in the Kruger we headed back to camp where Ellie headed to the toilet and brought back a German guy who spent an hour sitting with us telling us his life story of life on the road all over the world and how to buy cars in foreign countries. He was quite fascinating especially telling us about Columbia, Peru and Patagonia.
    At 3:10pm, just after we had got rid of our very chatty German friend who Ellie is now friends with on Facebook, we headed back down to the waterhole we were at this morning.
    As soon as we arrived we were in luck with 10 elephants drinking from the waterhole surrounded by Zebra.
    Within a few minutes a Jackal came down to drink and then moved off to the side laying down watching as herds of Zebra, Wilderbeast and Buffalo moved in and the elephants moved in.
    The Jackal was waiting for the same thing as us, a predator, and he was there to take the scraps.
    We waited and waited watching the herd and nothing came so at 5:20pm we left giving us 10 minutes on the road incase of a sighting. Obviously we were disappointed and I was just saying all the moving parts were there for a predator but we just couldn’t wait any longer.
    Then we both caught a yellow glimpse moving on the right hand side and there it was just standing there. A Cheetah just 40 meters away coming towards us.
    I stopped, backed up a car length and waited. We couldn’t believe our luck. We had the whole road to ourselves nothing behind and nothing infront and he walked out into the road just feet away from us crossing from one side to the other and then disappearing again.
    Within 1 minute we had spotted him, photographed him, and he’d gone.
    Then a car came down the road behind us and we told them what we had seen but they didn’t see it. It was our moment.
    We arrived back at camp at 5:55pm super excited and headed straight for todays sightings board to put our cheetah on the map. Then we went into the shop to get bread and sausages for dinner and then back to our camp.
    By the time we had put the fans back in the tent, plugged the fridge back into electric and got the tables and chairs out of the tent it was dark.
    Ellie cooked us sausage sandwiches for dinner and as we sat down to eat them 2 bushbabies emerged from the side of tent coming towards me. I don’t know whether they bite but they do look extremely cute and then the first one got on his back legs held his hands out and walked straight up to me looking like he wanted a cuddle. We just couldn’t believe it, all this time spent trying to capture bushbabies at Marloth and here’s 2 almost on my lap.
    They went into the drinking tap drain right next to me where we get our fresh water and then just sat in the tree next to us just watching. Ellie wouldn’t let me feed them any of our fruit.
    After washing up we just sat outside, looking up into the trees for the bushbabies and listening to the hyena 20 meters away the other side of the fence.    Read more

  • Misadventures Of WandaSouth Africa Solo
    Day 11

    Kruger Day 5- Back to Satara Camp

    March 12 in South Africa ⋅ ☁️ 25 °C

    At 5am we were up with Coffee on the go and at 6:10am we were leaving Letaba Camp for the last time and heading back to Satara.
    It was only a 40 mile drive and TomTom said we’d be there at 8am which was way to early so I poodled along at 20kph looking in the bushes and across the grassy plains for anything other than our usual suspects. It was a lot cooler today and as we drove the sky thickened up and turned grey, then really dark grey and then the rain started falling. On previous days it has rained but so little it just dried within minutes and hasn’t affected our viewing at all. Today wasn’t going to be like that.
    We arrived at Satara camp at 9:30am. To early we thought for a cheeky early check in so I decided to just drive into the camp ground because nobody checks you in and look for a decent spot next to the fence to watch the hyena. Unfortunately all the good spots with electric by the fence had gone and we desperately needed electric now because little Simba has got such a weak battery it will only charge one thing at a time and we need that to be the fridge. Everything else including the sat nav is running off power banks which we need to charge overnight.
    We found a nice spot under a big shady tree which also gave us some shelter from the rain and I parked the camper and then we headed over to the restaurant for breakfast.
    We found out last time we were here that this is the slowest restaurant for service in the world and today was no exception and 2 cold coffees and a warm breakfast cost us 90 minutes of time but only £6 in cash so for killing time and saving money that was a good deal.
    Back at camp we pitched the tent which was a nightmare,trying to hammer in basic tent pegs with a rubber hammer into ground like concrete. Even when we got the tent half the crappy pegs were bent and even though I kept straightening them they were now weak and useless.
    I was desperate to get the whole tent pinned down as the wind was getting up and the rain was getting harder so we walked over to the shop and brought 4 decent tent pegs which did help us out but now we were soaked to the skin.
    Ellie put our mattresses and sleeping bags in while I sorted out the electrics and it felt secure and cosy.
    Our tent has an inner piece of canvas with 4 mesh windows which zip open and because of the heat we’ve had them open all the time and it also has a fly sheet with 4 zip open windows that we can either roll up for air flow or zip down closed or peg open on guide ropes. We pegged them open for airflow then left camp to drive the Satara to Orpen road because Ellie wanted to look for lions.
    On the way out we then checked in and it was 12:45pm. We turned right out of the gate and then right again and then took the 40km drive to Orpen Camp and it rained all the way.
    Orpen Camp has no tent camping, Just Chalets and we thought we’d use there restaurant for lunch when we got there but on arrival at 2:45pm we realised there isn’t a restaurant just a coffee shop that only serves coffee so we had a latte each and then started our return journey at 3:15pm.
    It rained and rained and I didn’t want to find lions in this weather. The roads started to fill up and whenever there was a hill at the bottom would be a huge puddle. I stuck to just 30kph all the way home as there were lots of tortoises on the road and we played 2 of our favourite games all the way, the first one is poo or tortoise because you can’t tell if it’s elephant poo or a tortoise until your right ontop of it the second game is snake or stick.
    Here you have to avoid driving over poo to protect dung beetles so everybody avoids it which is a saving grace for the tortoises.
    Back at camp the rain and wind were really getting up and our tent had developed quite a few leaks due to the number of pinprick holes in the roof of the outer fly sheet and the rain had come in the flaps on the side straight on to my bed. Luckily just the sheet was wet.
    We did the inner windows up and once again it felt cosy and then with nothing to do I put the tablet on our rucksack and we watched the new grand tour for 2 hours while the rain got worse.
    At 7:30pm we decided to head out to get pizza at the restaurant and I took that chance to do the out zips up as my clothes were still wet. At the restaurant it was packed so we settled in for a long wait but fortunately the pizza place was dead and we had food and drinks within 20 minutes. It was at this point on the news we realised we were being hit by a tropical cyclone that had just decimated Mozambique and Malalane and there were aid adverts all over Ellie’s Facebook feed, that’s why the rain and wind were so bad. 45minuted later we were back at camp. It was now 8:45pm and our bedtime.
    I stayed up watching my tablet and getting dripped on every 20 minutes and Ellie tried to get to sleep.
    At 1am I was back up. I thought I was sweating because I was so clammy and sat up and checked my mattress, which being sponge had absorbed all the water coming in the bottom of the tent, and the bigger drips coming in the roof. I put my hand on the ground sheet and it felt like a water balloon with all the water that was underneath us, we were literally floating and just the pegs were keeping us here.
    I did go back to sleep but woke up once an hour until 3:30am when I just gave up and to my surprise Ellie started talking to me because she hadn’t been asleep at all.    Read more

  • Misadventures Of WandaSouth Africa Solo
    Day 12

    Kruger Day 6 - Satara Day 2

    March 13 in South Africa ⋅ ☀️ 33 °C

    After our night of no sleep we decided to drive to Orpen Camp 40km away to get coffee. We and the tent had survived a cyclone but it was still raining and I didn’t hold out much chance of making it to Orpen let alone see anything on the way.
    The sun didn’t really rise it just went from dark to light within a few minutes and by the time we reached Orpen at 7am we had seen, Giraffe, Impala, Warthog, Wilderbeast and quite a few Saddleback Stork.
    We stopped for coffee for 30 minutes and on the way back about 4km into our journey we spotted a huge male lion with a black Mayne wandering across our closest horizon line. Funnily enough he walked straight through a herd of Impala and they were just staring at him, then he roared a few times and the ran off. We sat here for 10 minutes and even though he went out of sight we could clearly hear him.
    Then 20km down the road we came to 2 cars just stopped at the roadside and looked across and saw an African Wild dog just laying there. He was motionless and our first thought was someone had hit him with a car. Then 2 more stood up behind him. Then another. They were completely invisible even though we were just 10 feet away. Then a Hyena walked out from behind a bush and just stood there looking at the wild dogs.
    As I photographed, more cars pulled up and blocked us in. I had a game ranger next to us who I had told about the wild dogs and nobody can ask them to move so I just clicked away getting shots for 5 minutes until a gap opened up and I moved out, letting another car take my place. The rule of the parks is 90 seconds to take your pictures then move on to let others see. Unless you’re on your own or there’s viewing space.
    We arrived back at camp at 9:30am. The rain had stopped and once I’d parked I got all the wet stuff out and put it on the roof of the camper. By 10am it was already 30°c and by 10:30am everything was dry so we made cheese toasties for breakfast then went off to have a shower.
    At midday we headed over to the restaurant to use there Wi-Fi and have a cold beer, it was now 35°c and there were no clouds left. It’s much better than yesterday.
    At 2pm we headed back to camp and were joined by 2 agama that were beautiful colours with blue heads and a yellowy green body. As soon as they climbed the trees next to us they disappeared. They to were enjoying the sun.
    At 3:30pm we headed back out and Ellie wanted to drive the same road as this morning so we turned right out of the gate and right again.
    6km up we saw a couple of cars stopped at the roadside. It was exactly where we had seen the wild dogs and hyena this morning. Surely they couldn’t still be in the same place.
    As I crept slowly up the wrong side of the road we saw them again. 5 wild dog just laying there. Then one got up and started moving off and making an excited puppy sound. 3 of the others got up and went to him, nuzzling his nose and wagging their tails. Then one of the three came over to the other 2 laying down and started licking their mouths and wagging their tails.
    You could see 3 of them just wanted to get going, just like a dog when you say you’re going for a walk, running backwards and forwards, saying come on, I’m ready.
    The other 2 got up, had a big stretch. Greeted the other 3 with lots of licking and tail wagging and then ran off. The hunt had started.
    We stayed there for a few minutes saying how lucky we were and then from behind a bush a hyena took off after the wild dog like a stalker in the night.
    That was the same hyena that we’d seen earlier and he’d stayed watching that pack of wild dogs all day crouched behind a bush out of sight.
    We headed down the road and at 5:10pm I turned around and headed back to the gate. There was a huge queue about 1km before we got home and someone said they had seen lions but they had said that this morning on the way home and we couldn’t see them then or now.
    Back at camp it was 6pm and we headed straight to the restaurant for dinner and on the way back to our tent at 7:30pm the lions were roaring outside the fence. It is an unbelievably scary sound that penetrates right to your soul and as we got into bed at 8pm it sounded like the male lions were having a proper stand off right outside the fence.
    Tomorrow we will go looking for them.    Read more

  • Misadventures Of WandaSouth Africa Solo
    Day 13

    Kruger Day 7 - Satara Day 3

    March 14 in South Africa ⋅ ⛅ 29 °C

    We were up at 4:45am and queued up to get out of the gate at 5:30am. We were about 12th in the queue but as it was still dark I wasn’t worried about places.
    Everybody seemed to turn right out of the gate and except for 2 cars that carried on everybody else turned right again heading to Orpen Camp. Once on that road all of the trucks and cars in front took off easily doing more than 50kph.
    I stuck to 40kph poodling along checking the landscape as the light started to get better. Other cars drove around us even when I got up to 50kph in a bushy area. There’s no way they were looking for things. All they wanted was to catch up with the cars in front and hoped they had seen something. All they were doing was driving and whenever somebody stopped, so would they.
    We continued on and about 20km later we came to a bunch of cars including 3 of the idiots that had overtaken us all queued down the wrong side of the road.
    The left side was still clear so we carried on creeping past everyone slowly and then we saw 2 lions laying in the grass. I pulled infront of the first car and we had the perfect view and got some amazing photos. Once I’d gone past and got my camera out the idiots that were queuing all pulled along side us and the other cars once they realised what we had seen.
    The male was trying to mate with the female and when she said no he was roaring just 20 feet away from us, then they turned and walked into the bush.
    I moved off driving down the road following a little white car and the moron that had parked next to us just drove alongside us, he was chatting away with his window undone and I could her some girl cackling away laughing.
    A gap opened up and I pushed “ little Simba” into it and we got back up to 40kph then the van overtook us and the car infront and shot down the road.
    I came to the next junction just a kilometre away from Orpen Camp and decided to do a U turn. Ellie said she wanted a tea but I said I didn’t want to sit in a cafe with any of those people not bothered to put the hours and legwork in game hunting and all of the trucks that had shot off first thing had all driven past the lions because they were going to fast to see.
    I set off again at viewing speed, 40kph max and just as we went over the crest of a hill the male and female lion were walking down the road right towards us. There was a queue of cars behind them but they were facing us and we had the best seat in the house. They kept coming so I turned the engine off and stuck my camera out of the window shooting away.
    Female first then the huge male they were now just 30 meters away, then 20……..15……..10 meters…………5. “Quick, do the windows up” I said to Ellie and just as I got my window half way up the female lion got to my door brushing past the front of “little Simba”. She was so close if my window was still undone I could have easily touched her. Then the male did exactly the same.
    The queue of cars behind slowly trundled by and the first guy gave me a big smile and the thumbs up. That was definitely a moment to remember.
    We couldn’t believe how lucky we were, Ellie was beside herself with her mission of seeing lions walking down the road complete, I said I just need to see a leopard to really be happy.
    I keep asking God to send me a leopard, he sent me a cheetah, wild dogs, hyena, lions, but still no leopard. He’s just not getting the message.
    5km later I came across one game vehicle sitting on a bridge, I crept slowly up to the backside and left blocking the road and I leaned out of the window camera in hand.
    The lady at the back said “ There’s a cheetah down there pointing at the dry river bed”
    “ No, that’s actually a leopard” I said, and there was my leopard laying down staring straight at my camera in the dry river bed.
    30 seconds later he stood up, had a scratch and jumped into the bushes and he was gone.
    We had been so lucky, if I hadn’t turned around and we had gone for coffee we wouldn’t have seen the lions, 1 minute later and we wouldn’t have seen the leopard. But thanks to the morons driving fast first thing we had seen everything and mostly on our own.
    Now the hunt was on to find them all again!!
    We got back to our camp at 9:20am, this morning we had peaked really early. I was shattered so after a coffee I decided to watch something on the kindle for 20 minutes and then have a 30 minute rest. When I got up we wandered over to the shop to get bread, water and milk and use the internet at the side of the restaurant for an hour before heading back to camp to make Wanda toasties for lunch.
    At 2pm we decided to grab a 30 minute Power Nap together just to keep ourselves fresh for this afternoons drive. It was much cooler today, just 26°c so it was easier to rest.
    Just after 3:30pm we headed back out towards Orpen Camp again, this time we saw huge herds of Zebra and Wilderbeast with their babies, then we saw a large herd of giraffe with babies and then a huge herd of elephants with 3 or 4 babies. Baby elephants look so mischievous running along behind or in the middle of the herd with their little legs while the adults look like they are moving in slow motion.
    We got down as far as the bridge where we saw the leopard but we didn’t see him even though we knew he was there somewhere. It was already 10 minutes past turning back time but we had taken a very slow drive down and we headed back home sticking just under the speed limit at 48kph as a squally wind and rain blew through. We got back to camp at 5:50pm.
    Back at our tent the wind had dropped off again but it looked like it might do something so we battened down all the windows and doors and then headed to the restaurant for dinner. Fortunately it was quiet again and we got drinks immediately and served our dinner within 20 minutes. We were back in our tent for 7:30pm and with nothing to do we decided to just go straight to bed.    Read more

  • Misadventures Of WandaSouth Africa Solo
    Day 14

    Kruger Day 8 - Satara Day 4

    March 15 in South Africa ⋅ ☁️ 26 °C

    We woke up at 4:45am to the sound of rain on the tent. It had rained most of the night. Nothing heavy just the fine drizzle that gets in everywhere and enough to soak everything right through.
    We’d done well with the tent yesterday evening closing everything down and we had stayed dry, but when it rains here everything here has a sticky feel, including us, so it was a nightmare turning over in bed as it felt like we had been sprayed in glue every time we turned over.
    I made coffee outside as the rain gradually stopped and we stood under the tailgate of our camper because the chairs were wet. Ellie said she didn’t feel great but at 5:30am we left camp and started the drive to Orpen Gate again. As soon as we left we heard lions roaring in the distance and to start with we were feeling hopeful but 15km in to the drive the rain started coming down again.
    They had obviously had a lot more rain at Orpen Camp because the road was flooding and there was water everywhere. Except for the odd Zebra and hundreds of Impala we didn’t see much.
    Once I’d put the windscreen wipers on full I decided to turn around and head back. Neither of us wanted to see anything good in this rain and halfway back the rain stopped, the road was completely dry and it looked like it had never rained atall here.
    About 5km from Satara we came across the biggest herd of buffalo we had ever seen. It looked like a cattle drive from the Wild West with hundreds of Buffalo in a line crossing the road infront of us and disappearing across the horizon. It was quite the sight.
    We arrived back at camp at 8:10am and the rain had stopped although it was overcast so we decided to head back to bed. I got back up at 9:30am leaving Ellie to get some sleep while I made myself breakfast and then went for a shower. Ellie got back up around 11am.
    Once we had, had more coffee we wandered over to reception to get some change for the laundry machines and then we did our first proper washing of the trip. It was amazing how little clothes we had to wash. I haven’t been wearing any underwear for about 5 days and we’ve both just been living in the same shorts since we arrived, just like a couple of pikees.
    Once the washing was done a big trailer pulled up opposite us to set up camp. We got talking to them and they showed us around there trailer, it was a beautiful bit of kit completely off grid and it even had a shower, toilet. It was like a complete off road caravan.
    We spent the rest of the day Lazing around camp until 4pm when we decided to walk all of the camp just to get some exercise in. We had decided to skip an evening game drive as it’s a little rushed to get anywhere and except for our chance sighting of a cheetah on the way back from the watering hole at Letaba we hadn’t seen much on afternoon drives.
    Our walk finished close to the restaurant at 5:15pm so we headed for an early dinner and it was great to get served straight away.
    Just as our drinks came out our German friend and his disabled wife came in and started talking to us. Stupidly I offered her a chair after her standing there for 10 minutes on crutches and he said no it will be a bit of a squeeze with 4 of us at one table then they sat at the table next to us.
    He spoke excellent English and only shut up when food was served which was a blessing, she doesn’t speak English and after we had all finished our meals he said “ Shall we meet tomorrow evening for dinner?”
    Obviously we couldn’t say no, so now we have a dinner reservation for 6:30pm tomorrow evening with the Germans. Unless she is ill, or he actually tells her that he made a dinner reservation when we had left.
    Back at camp we decided to get an early night and after watching some rubbish on the tablet we settled in for some sleep at 8pm ready for another early start.    Read more

  • Misadventures Of WandaSouth Africa Solo
    Day 15

    Kruger Day 9 - Satara Day 5

    March 16 in South Africa ⋅ ☀️ 29 °C

    After our first good nights sleep in a few days we were up at 4:45am. I made the coffee in the dark and there were still stars in the sky which meant no cloud and it was probably going to be hot. As we sat there drinking our coffee we could hear the Hyena whooping in the distance.
    I was in no hurry to get out of the gate, the camp was busier because it is a weekend and people had started queuing for the gate at 5:10am. We just took our time and got in the camper at 5:35am and rolled out of the gate soon afterwards.
    We turned right out of the gate ready to turn right again towards Orpen Camp but just after the first kilometre we came to a queue of cars about 10 deep.
    There were 3 lions in the middle of the road, 2 female and a male just laying there. Just as we came to a stand still a 3rd female lion popped out of the ditch right next to us and proceeded down the road weaving between the cars and then promptly sat on the edge of the tarmac.
    The cars couldn’t go anywhere for 10 minutes until the male had decided he would let us pass, then we had to contend with the idiots that wanted more than their fair share of pictures and just kept stopping right next to the lions for 5 minutes at a time.
    We got some pretty good photos but the cars were building up behind and other people were staying put as soon as they had a decent position even though they had pictures so we decided to push on.
    Another 30km down the road towards Orpen I came across a game vehicle and we stopped and had a chat. I told him about the lions down the road and he told us there were 2 more in our direction about 2km away.
    Hoping to get better pictures this time and not be surrounded by idiots we set off and soon came to another load of cars. Fortunately most of these were moving but just as we joined the queue one of the cars just stopped right infront of the lions and turned his engine off. Now we all had to try and squeeze past him. There were 4 game vehicles coming the other way and they drove down the centre of traffic towards us, I was in a relatively good position where we could see the lions and had my camera out shooting away. We couldn’t go anywhere because of the moron infront that was obviously clueless about the queue he was creating. Then the first game vehicle stopped right infront of him and blocked his view while all his passengers took pictures. The driver of the game vehicle said he should have moved on and he replied he wanted to see the lions. The driver infront of us just stayed put with his engine off blocking the left hand side of the road and 1 by 1 each game vehicle drove down the centre and stopped infront of him blocking his view. We could still see and we had plenty of shots and once the game vehicles had passed we drove out into the centre of the road and passed by the idiots that had decided to stake there place and block everyonelses view.
    Once we were almost at Orpen camp we spun around stopping a game vehicle and letting him know about the lions down the road. He said thanks and shot off and we followed him back towards the lions and home. When we got there the lions had moved into the grass but the car that had stopped infront of us was still there and our new friend in the game vehicle drove into the grass blocking his view. This time we just drove slowly by. We already had our shots.
    On the way back to camp we didn’t see much else, and about 1km before we got back people were still queuing and craning there necks trying to see the 4 lions we had seen earlier but they were gone. There was nothing left to see except a couple of ears hundreds of meters away.
    We got back to Camp just after 9am and after Wanda Toasties we wandered over to the restaurant to check up on social media and our emails and then we went to the pool for a swim for an hour.
    We got back to camp at 12:30pm and it was roasting hot and we spent the afternoon on the chairs infront of our tent in the shade watching a hornbill wrestle a giant locust. The agama sat at the side hoping the hornbill would give up and let him have it.
    At 2:30pm it was so hot that we decided to go for a drive just so we could have air con. Our route took us down the S100 which is the most famous road in the Kruger for sightings and things happening. We didn’t see any to note but at this time of the year the grass is quite high and considering the time of day we didn’t expect to see anything.
    We crossed 2 rivers on route and little Simba did well getting us through the water, then we turned right and right again picking up the H-4 tar road heading back to camp.
    I was driving super slow looking out the windows for animals and then Ellie shouted “what was that?” As something ran across the road. I didn’t see it because I was looking out the side but she thought it might have been a honey badger. I turned little Simba around and we crawled down the road and then a huge black mamba snake shot out from the grass infront of us across the road and back into the grass on the other side. He must have been 3-4 feet long.
    We didn’t ever see what Ellie had originally seen.
    We got back to camp at 5:10pm just as our German friend was going out of the gate and we waved. We were both starving and regretting the decision to meet at 6:30pm for dinner when we could have eaten now while the restaurant was quiet.
    Back at the tent, Ellie bumped into a lady with a beautiful trailer tent just behind us on the way to the toilets. When she came back she said we having a viewing inside that one in 10 minutes. I really can’t let her go anywhere on her own. The other day it was the German, yesterday it was Derick and his wife with there trailer and today it’s someonelse.
    At 6pm we headed over to the restaurant to use the Wi-Fi and at 6:20pm our German friends arrived and we sat down for dinner and Werner was off talking from the moment we sat down. His wife didn’t say a word all night, he told us already she doesn’t speak good English but does understand it but that wouldn’t have mattered if she did speak English because even Ellie and I couldn’t get a word in. It was a case of just Nod and smile.
    Fortunately at 7:50pm we were done and they didn’t want to hang about so we said our goodbyes and left the restaurant with earache, ready for an early night.    Read more

  • Misadventures Of WandaSouth Africa Solo
    Day 16

    Kruger Day 10 - Lower Sabie Camp

    March 17 in South Africa ⋅ ☁️ 28 °C

    We were awake at 4am but didn’t get up until 4:45am. Today was moving day and we have a pretty good routine going where I make teas and coffee while Ellie gets dressed then goes to the bathroom. When she gets back I go to the bathroom and then we drink coffee while Ellie packs up the mattresses and sleeping bags and then I get in the tent and sort all the wires out. While I’m in the tent Ellie is loading the kitchen stuff bag into the slide outs and once I’m out with the electrical bag we load all the bedding into the back of the camper. Then we finish our drinks, put the tables and chairs back in and pull the stakes up for the tent. It’s a pretty easy tent as it all just folds in on itself with a fly sheet over the top. This morning we beat our previous best time by 10 minutes and we were leaving Satara Camp for the last time. This had been a great camp and we’d had some great sightings.
    Ellie wanted to see what Skukuza Camp looked like as we should have been staying there but cancelled and we took a very slow game drive 90 kilometres there, stopping on route at the T’Shokwane picnic area for breakfast jaffels, which are basically a South African toastie but round. We didn’t see anything on route to write about, it was all the usual suspects of impala and zebra and even they were very few.
    At 11am we arrived at Skukuza Camp, this is the largest of all the camps in the Kruger and even has its own airport. It used to also have its own train station that was built for the gold rush of 1929 but has since been decommissioned and now the train and carriages stand on the old railway bridge. All of the carriages have now been converted into sleeping and guest quarters and for £850 a night you can stay in one. We would have to settle for a tent.
    We stopped for lunch at Skukuza in the old railway station and didn’t think we’d missed much by cancelling our nights here and staying at Satara. Skukuza is like a small town.
    At 1pm we hit the road again stopping at a watering hole where there were no big animals but we did find dwarf mongoose with babies.
    Back onto tarmac we had 40 kilometres of driving to do and as I rounded a corner there were 8 cars sitting at the roadside.
    As we crept up behind them we could see vultures circling and coming down. We knew there was a kill. We crept up so as not to disturb the vultures and pulled in behind the last car to see 100’s of vultures eating something. At first we couldn’t see what it was but then the vultures started fighting and as they jumped up we saw a dead hyena. It was a pretty gruesome sight but the vultures would pick it clean within an hour. Nothing here is waisted.
    We swiftly moved on and didn’t see anything else to note except for where 2 of the road bridges had been completely washed away by flood waters and we were diverted off road down into the river bed and then back onto the road. The gaps in the tarmac where the bridges had been were massive. It’s amazing the power of nature. We finally arrived at Lower Sabie Rest Camp at 2pm and checked in.
    We are only here for one night so we found a camp spot and pitched our tent, just staking the main tent and fly and not bothering with the guide lines this time. The ground here is just like concrete and for every hole I had to make a pilot hole with the pegs we brought before using the crappy pegs that came with the tent.
    Once pitched my first stop was the shop for beer, ice cold, because I was sweating like anything after doing the tent. Then we came back to camp, got the chairs and table out and just started to relax when Ellie started talking to our neighbours with a trailer tent. The next thing we were getting another guided tour of tents and trailers and how everything works.
    After the chat Ellie wanted to use the Wi-Fi in the restaurant to see how much the trailer tents are but the Wi-Fi was useless here and we ended up spending 2 hours talking to a man from Zimbabwe and his wife who now live in Australia.
    When we get back to England I’m going to buy a very short lead and attach Ellie to it whenever she leaves the house.
    We got back to camp at 5pm. Now it was beer time and a chance to relax. We decided not to do an evening game drive as it had got very humid and the sky looked like it could rain and we’d spent 8 hours driving today.
    At 6pm we had Ellie’s lunch of cold pizza for dinner and then we just chilled out at camp until it got dark and we went to bed.    Read more

  • Misadventures Of WandaSouth Africa Solo
    Day 17

    Kruger Day 11 - Back To Marloth Park

    March 18 in South Africa ⋅ ☁️ 27 °C

    We were awake at 4:30am. We were heading back to Marloth Park today but we had plenty of time to kill as we couldn’t check in until 2pm so we thought we’d do a game drive down towards Crocodile Bridge first thing and then come back and pack up.
    The gates were already open at 5:30am when we left and all the cars had gone, they had been released early.
    We turned left poodling along at just 25km an hour as the sun started to rise and gradually we could see further into the bush.
    We spotted the odd Impala and Wilderbeast and then Ellie spotted something wriggling across the road. I stopped next to it and it looked like a giant slow worm about 18 inches long. It had no eyes so we couldn’t tell front from back except the direction it was moving. It was a black,grey, green colour and reminded me from something from the X Files. It really was disgusting looking.
    Just after the slow worm we came to a huge watering hole full of hippos and their babies. We sat here for a good 20 minute’s watching the babies playing with their mums. It was mad to see hippos actually running around and diving and jumping into the water when all we normally see is them standing still in rivers. If we hadn’t seen it we wouldn’t have believed it.
    We span “little simba” around and headed back. Still not seeing much, no big herds or big cats. Once we got to lower Sabie camp I drove straight past following the river road over the 2 pieces of missing road we had passed yesterday. I really wanted to see another leopard, preferably in a tree but I would have just settled for seeing one out in the open.
    Unfortunately the game viewing was pretty much the same in this direction and after 30 minutes we turned around and headed back to camp.
    It was 9am when we got back and after a quick cup of tea we packed everything up for the last time and loaded the camper. At 10am we left Lower Sabie Camp and headed for crocodile bridge.
    It was a 40km drive to Crocodile Bridge and it was sparse if all wildlife until the last 3km when we came across huge herds of Wilderbeast and Zebra and Imapala with Warthog dotted in between. It was like all of the days animals had congregated together to see us off. Then at the last bridge at 1km to go we saw a female lion lying just above the riverbank. I tried to go down a dirt track to get a better look but from that angle all we could see was the tree she was under. It didn’t matter, we had seen lions and had some good photos and she was here to see us off. From the bridge a kilometre down we passed over crocodile bridge over the cattle grids and out of the Kruger. It felt very strange trying to do 80-100kph when our maximum speed had been 50kph for the last 10 days.
    We arrived back at Marloth Park at midday and after stopping at the new spar that had just opened for water and milk we headed to the tin shack Mozambique restaurant for lunch to kill the 2 hours we had to wait. Fortunately they had good internet here so we caught up on our emails and social media over the past 48hrs.
    At 2pm we collected our keys from the field security office and headed for our new home for the next 7 nights. 3111 Berghaan and when we arrived it was a beautiful place.
    The owners had already put food and hay out for the animals and when we opened the back curtains there were Warthog, Impala, Kudu, and crested Guinea fowl eating and laying in the hay having a lovely time.
    The house itself is amazing. Made of brick and thatch with pan tiles over the thatch so inside it still feels like a bush house. It has a large open plan kitchen/diner/lounge area that runs straight through the centre of the house and you can see the front door from the back. In America it would be called a shotgun house because you can see all the way through.
    Off to the right is a master bedroom with large en-suite and off to the left is a second double bedroom with a separate toilet and seperate shower room. Upstairs there are 4 single beds. It also has air con and solar so most important things will work during load shedding.
    For the rest of the afternoon we sat in the garden watching the animals, it is great to see the different dynamics and at one point we had 15 zebra and their foals in the garden.
    Around 6:30pm we started a Braai, it was a bit late really and Ellie messed it up by putting the wood on top of the coals so it didn’t really get hot enough and the wood wouldn’t stay alight. Once we thought the coals were hot enough we cooked steaks in the pie iron and Braai tools on the griddle. While the coals were getting hot we also put Banana in the dish for the bush babies and while we sat down to eat dinner a lesser bushbaby came down to get banana right in front of us.
    The light from the house is pretty good here so I went inside and got my camera. A handheld shot would never catch the bushbaby so I set the tripod up, manually focused on a tree he had been on and used the wired trigger in my hand so I didn’t have to move.
    Then the bushbaby came back, I sat excited incase he jumped on the branch and then he did. I fired the camera and then checked. I got him. My first real picture of a bushbaby on a proper camera.
    I kept shooting every time he landed on the branch until eventually the camera battery died and at 8:30pm we put the air con on and went to bed.    Read more

  • Misadventures Of WandaSouth Africa Solo
    Day 18

    Our First Day Back

    March 19 in South Africa ⋅ ☁️ 26 °C

    We woke up at 6am. Neither of us had slept very well considering we were in a comfy bed in beautiful surroundings.
    I’d found the duvet to short to come up to my ears which I like covered and also not wide enough that if there were 2 of us in the bed it wouldn’t fall over us and touch the mattress. I also didn’t realise there was a sheet under the duvet until 4am.
    We got up and filled a food bucket full of animal feed and opened the back door. There was just one Kudu waiting for us but within minutes of putting the food down the herd turned up. We had 8 Kudu, 3-4 impala, 10 warthog and with the warthog came the Crested Guinea Fowl. In the back stood the bushbuck and little Diekers. They like the sweet potatoes really but the feed shop is currently out of them.
    Even though we hadn’t had much sleep Ellie fancied a walk and as we were peaking really early today at 8:10am we went for a 6km hike following the fence line of the Kruger and the crocodile river. We found a flat tailed skink down there and lots of Waterbok up against the fence.
    When we got back to the house at 9:30am it was really heating up outside and I decided to use the cuddle puddle in the garden for the first time and it was freezing cold. It was the coldest water I’d felt since we got here and it was so refreshing.
    We didn’t do much with the rest of the morning except watch the animals coming and going in the garden. We both found it very zen like. Then at 2pm I decided we couldn’t sit here all day so we took a drive into Komatipoort to do a little shopping. Getting to the town is easy but once you’re there it’s a hub of activity and even though it is a small place it feels like a city centre, which is daunting as tomorrow we have actually decided to drive to the closest city of Neilspruit, now renamed Mbombela for some reason.
    Back at the house it was now 4:30pm. We had a visit in the garden of a Kudu and her tiny calf that didn’t have a tail yet just some cotton wool placed there instead. Once the mother kudu had eaten some hay and some pellets she just kept washing the baby, that was defiantly worth seeing.
    For dinner I did the Braai as Ellie cocked it up last night and we had burgers and Braai rolls with beetroot, potato salad and coleslaw. It felt like a real Braai we had cooked ourselves, then I set my camera up and Ellie filled the bushbaby food bowl with banana and I waited for the bushbaby to come. Now I knew what to expect I got some great photos and even some video even though I had a Kudu watching me all night with its head through the bars looking for food. At 9pm I called it a night because no matter where I stood the kudu stood in front of me so I gave up trying to get any more pictures of the bushbaby and went to bed.    Read more

  • Misadventures Of WandaSouth Africa Solo
    Day 19

    A Trip to Nelspruit

    March 20 in South Africa ⋅ ☁️ 26 °C

    We were up at 6am and it’s great opening the curtains to see what animals are in the garden. This morning we had a herd of zebra with 2 foals and a bunch of Warthog.
    We gave them a huge buckets worth of food and through it out with a big cup scattering it all around the garden. Pretty soon we had a semi circle of zebra completely surrounding us. It was great watching the foals get milk from their mums because they are still so small. The warthog just seem to eat and eat and get lower and lower eventually collapsing to the ground quite content and slip into a food coma for 30 minutes and then start the truffle hunting again.
    Our plan today was to drive into Nelspruit. It’s actually named Mbombasa now but everyone still calls it Nelspruit and the shops are still labelled as Nelspruit on google but all the signposts say Mbombasa. We actually had to google if they were the same place, it’s very confusing.
    We’ve thought about buying a car here for the last 2 trips but we need a traffic registration number. If we could get that then we could buy a car and put it in storage and have all our camping gear stored in that ready to go. This time we think we’ve sorted out a TRN so we thought we’d give driving into a major city a go to see how we get on.
    At 9am we left Marloth Park to take the 65 mile trip to Nelspruit. It wasn’t that bad of a drive, The worst thing was our little camper. It’s really gutless in hills so overtaking on a hill is out of the question unless I can get a good run up first and doing 60mph feels and sounds like your doing 100mph. The speed limit is actually 75mph but that just felt to scary with our tiny little wheels and my hands were hurting from gripping the steering wheel so tight.
    We arrived at our first stop right in the city centre just before 11am. The Sportsman’s Warehouse. I’d checked online and this place was like the Decathlon of Sourh Africa selling almost anything sport related from running shoes to tents to bikes and even treadmills and indoor trainers. We were just here to check prices and most things were comparable to home although we did have to check stuff on our currency app. The same indoor bike trainer as mine was nearly double the price I paid. Bikes are between £300-£800 for something decent. And running machines started at £500.
    From the Sportsman’s warehouse we headed a few hundred yards on foot through the retail park to our main event of the day. The Outdoor Warehouse. This place has anything you could ever want for your camping or overland trip and stuff you could never think of. There were Pie Irons, Braai stuff you couldn’t believe. They even had a battery powered spit so you could rotate the Braai meat. There was camping clothes, waterproof camping bags of all sizes with hundreds of pockets. They did plastic ammo boxes that lock together for travelling, mattress of all shapes and sizes, camping beds and inflatable mattresses for tents. And the whole of the upstairs was just tents, and I don’t mean that crap you get in the UK. These were proper canvas safari tents of all shapes and sizes. We were in our element just looking at the stuff you could get for camping here. There’s absolutely no need to be uncomfortable camping in South Africa and the prices were comparable to the Uk or cheaper.
    Our next stop was Wimpy for lunch which was a real relief because I didn’t think we were going to get to go into Wimpy this time. I had a huge burger because I hadn’t yet eaten and Ellie had the chicken schnitzels.
    From Wimpy we were feeling pretty confident. Nelspruit was busy but not crazy hectic and there was enough room in the traffic that if I went wrong I could have changed lanes, so we ventured on and went to another retail park and a used trailer and caravan supplier. This was a great move by us because we got to look around all the different trailers and caravans and the owner showed us what all the trailers did, what was in the drawers and cupboards and how different tent or caravan systems worked.
    From GT trailers we ventured further around the ring road and found a road that had all the major car sales places. We stopped at We buy Cars, this I think is the equivalent of we buy any car but here they get cleaned up and sold on. Obviously we can’t buy a car but we wanted to see what sort of prices they were going for and the mileage.
    All in all it was a really informative trip and we did a lot of window shopping. We knew how much camping gear would be and where to get it, we knew what to look for if we wanted a trailer and how it worked and we also knew how much cars were going for if ever we do decide to buy one, but most of all we knew we could drive into and out of a city and navigate around and not crap our pants the whole time. In fact except for being in the camper we felt quite relaxed all day.
    We left Nelspruit at 2pm and followed the coal trucks back home, overtaking where we could on the duel carriageways and then dropping back down to a speed that didn’t feel scary. We arrived back home at 4pm and the Warthogs were in the garden sleeping waiting for us. As soon as I opened the patio door they all stood up and came up to the patio waggling their tales.
    We threw another big bucket of food out and they munched away getting lower and lower until one by one they collapsed content with full bellies. It is a really funny thing to watch.
    As it got dark I set the camera up and Ellie put some bananas in the bowl and then I sat there waiting for the bushbaby to arrive listening to the sounds of hyena in the distance in the Kruger.
    Then at 8:30pm we called it a night and settled in ready for another early start in the morning wondering who will be waiting for us.    Read more

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