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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 25

    The Journey Home Pt 2

    March 26 in the Netherlands ⋅ ☁️ 10 °C

    We landed in Schiphol airport at 10:30am. I’d managed about 3 hours straight sleep on the plane even with the sleeping pills, Ellie faired far better with closer to 8 hours.
    We now had a 6.5 lay over and Ellie wanted to try to get into the city centre via train.
    We headed out of security and then found the bag holding point and dropped our hand luggage off for €12. This seemed an extortionate amount considering we would only be a couple of hours but the minimum holding time is 24hrs for €12 so we bit the bullet and paid.
    From the bag holding we found the train station and purchased 2 return tickets to Amsterdam central, then we waited 10 minutes for the train to arrive and within 20 minutes we had arrived in Amsterdam Central.
    It was at this point I realised Ellie didn’t actually have a plan for being here so I pulled out my phone, opened google maps and we started walking.
    Our first impression of the city was how dirty it was. There seemed to be rubbish everywhere and quite a few homeless people sleeping in cardboard houses outside closed shops. Our second impression was how busy it was. It was heaving with people. Yes lots of tourists but quite a few Dutch aswell. Considering it was march and not holiday season this place was packed. I’d hate to come back here in summer.
    We walked to the city square where there is a huge Madame Tussaud’s, a huge cathedral and the sex museum. We couldn’t justify spending €25 each to get into Madame Tussaud’s and I wasn’t allowed in the sex museum so we stuck our heads in the cathedral realised we had to pay for that too and promptly left.
    We headed down side streets that looked like any other street in any major town in the UK except that every other shop was a tourist shop selling weed in one form or another. Biscuits, tea, cakes and roll ups, if you could put weed in it, it was made and sold here.
    We were feeling a little hungry and thought we’d get some chips but at €8.50 for a cone each that wasn’t happening so we headed to McDonald’s where we had to pay nearly €8 each for a burger, and we got the smallest drink we had ever seen for €3.50. Amsterdam is seriously expensive.
    At 2pm we gave up looking around and smelling the weed thick air and jumped back on the train and back to the airport.
    I was seriously hanging now having been up for almost 36 hours and we retrieved our bags and then went and sat in the airport lounge. We had 90 minutes left before our final flight home and as I stared out of the window looking at the planes coming and going I just fell asleep.
    At 4:15pm Ellie nudged me awake and I felt like I had been in a really deep sleep, I felt delirious and as we queued to get on our final flight I just couldn’t wait to sit down again.
    Once on the plane the captain announced that the flight would only take 35 minutes and once we were up I closed my eyes again and was awoken 30 minutes later as we touched down.
    Once we were off the plane we passed back through customs and I had to wait for my bag. I was dreading that it hadn’t been transferred onto this flight considering we’d had a six hour layover but then it finally came out on the conveyor belt.
    I put my rucksack on my back and then we left the airport and walked 400 meters to McDonald’s where Leah was waiting for us and 45 minutes later we were walking back through our own front door.
    We had made it. Our self drive safari had been a success. We hadn’t been eaten or trampled by elephants and all of Ellie’s bookings had been a success. This had been a great trip and has given us the confidence to do it again and on our own. Africa……..We will be back!!!    Read more

  • Misadventures Of WandaSouth Africa Solo
    Day 24

    The Journey Home Pt 1

    March 25 in South Africa ⋅ ☁️ 20 °C

    We were up at 6am. It was raining heavily outside but we still had the 3 warthogs waiting for us. I made coffees and then went outside with the last of the game pellets and fed the warthog. They wagged their tails with excitement and I felt bad I didn’t have more.
    Once the pellets were gone 7 zebra moved in and the Warthogs left, now I felt really guilty as they all stood there in the rain staring at us.
    Most of our stuff was packed so after our coffees all we had showers and then packed the bedroom up. Then we emptied the fridge of the last of our food and we were pretty much ready.
    At 7:30am we headed to the tip to get rid of our 2 bin bags of rubbish. Then it was back to the house to load our bags into “little simba” and we were ready.
    At 8:30am we locked the house up for the last time and headed back to the field security office and dropped the keys off, then I set the sat nav for our 65 mile journey back to Kruger International airport and we set off.
    Our journey was pretty good considering the weather. We encountered the odd Moron that wanted to overtake but each time they overtook I just dropped back. The spray on the road was unreal and it was shocking to see how many cars didn’t have lights on. If there was a lorry in front and there are a lot of Lorries the cars with no lights were completely invisible until they were 20 meters away. Add to that some of the traffic lights or robots as the South Africans call them, being out because of load shedding it was a fun journey. Nobody knows whose turn it is when the robots aren’t working. I would have thought it was give way to the right the same as in England but it turns into abit of a free for all, the driving style in South Africa is something of an eye opener.
    We reached Kruger International Airport at 10:15am but we had a message from kitted campers who rented us “ little simba” to say we could leave the keys with the concierge so we had toasties from the coffee shop, unloaded our bags and then dropped the keys off. Now we had to wait for Larrissa our taxi driver to turn up at 11am.
    At 11:15am Larrissa hadn’t arrived so Ellie ran back inside to use the internet and she had a message to say she was nearly here but the rain was terrible and there had been an accident. We knew that was rubbish because we had just driven that same road but we figured she was going to be late because she was an hour late collecting us on the journey in. If we hadn’t already paid we’d have used someonelse. Larrissa is the size of a house but told us she has property’s to rent, lots of taxi’s and she never seemed to stop. We knew that was rubbish because you don’t get that size by running around all the time.
    Finally at 11:45am she arrived telling us about the accident and the rain and water on the road and Ellie made a few sarcastic comments that she didn’t pick up on.
    This journey should take 4.5 hours in total. I had just driven the first 90 minutes so we should have 3 hours in this taxi until we got to our hotel.
    As soon as we pulled out of the airport and back onto the main road we hit a hill and it sounded like the bus was struggling. I mentioned it and Larrissa said the battery terminal was loose and we’d stop at a garage to get it tightened. 10 minutes later we pulled into the services and a little man tightened the positive battery terminal.
    We set off again and now the bus seemed to be struggling all the time. Larrissa said it was fine and we were doing a steady 60-70kph in the flat and 80 downhill. Then it gradually got a little slower.
    We stopped at the halfway point, the same place as on the journey in where they had the rhinos and we got a snack. Larrissa once again went to find a man with a spanner and he did something under the engine and when we got back in she said it’s all fine now it was the battery.
    It wasn’t the battery and it wasn’t fine.
    As soon as we got back on the motorway our top speed was 60kph. That’s just 35 miles an hour. The Lorries are doing 80kph minimum and the speed limit is 120 kph.
    Larrissa put the hazard lights on and we gradually got slower and slower. Cars were beeping at us, Lorries were overtaking us uphill using there air horns and Larrissa decided to drive on the hard shoulder.
    That’s great but there isn’t a constant hard shoulder and when we got to some roadworks it just disappeared, so Larrissa decided to go through the cones and drive in the section of road that was closed. As we continued we could see roadworkers up ahead getting nearer. Larrissa stayed in the coned off area and every lorry that passed honked there air horns at us. Then we got to the roadworkers and they just gasped at us as we sailed smoothly by at 45kph on a closed section of road.
    Up ahead there was a dump truck in the way and Larrissa indicated to move back out but nobody was going to let us out at this speed. She edged closer and closer to joining the main traffic and cars were honking and the stationary dump truck was gradually nearing and at the last minute I thought we were going to hit it. She swerved out, and went straight through the makeshift barriers, bang, bang, bang and the bus flattened some and tossed others over the bonnet. Then she moved back into the closed section of road.
    This was a nightmare journey and we still had 80 kilometres to go.
    At every adjoining slip road she just sailed across it at 45kph and cars and Lorry’s were
    Honking and I was looking all around us because we could have been hit from any angle. To make things worse most of the time she was on 1 of her 2 phones and sometimes both.
    We finally reached our hotel at 6pm. It had been a 7 hour journey from hell and we laughed in terror when we got into our hotel room. We really couldn’t believe we had made it. We won’t be using Larrissa Again.
    We thought we were going to be here in the hotel for 6 hours and the plan was to have a nap and then dinner and get dropped back to Johannesburg airport at 9pm. We decided to skip dinner and just grab a 20 minute Power Nap and then watch TV until our driver collected us from the room and dropped us at Terminal B for international departures.
    It was now 9:30pm and we dropped our bags off, headed through what classes as security in a South African airport and then passport control and we were in the departure lounge at 11pm. We decided to grab a baguette each at a coffee shop so we could skip the plane food and at 11:45pm we headed to our gate.
    We boarded at midnight and unfortunately for us the flight was completely full and once we were on the plane and up in the air we waited for water to be handed out and the food to go around and then we both took our magic American sleeping pills. Then the lights went out and so did we. It had been a very long day and we hoped to sleep for most of this 10.5 hour flight.    Read more

  • Misadventures Of WandaSouth Africa Solo
    Day 23

    Our Last Lazy Day in Marloth Park

    March 24 in South Africa ⋅ ☁️ 23 °C

    I was awake at 4am tossing and turning in bed. At 5:30am I was just laying there wanting to get up but not wanting to wake Ellie. At 6am I looked over and Ellie was laying there with her eyes open. “Did you sleep much? “ she said “ Not really” I replied getting up and putting my slobby clothes on.
    Ellie got up, disarmed the alarm and opened the front and back doors and we had 7 zebra. I through out the half bucket I had and then made coffees and we drank them watching the zebra and warthog eat the hay and nuggets. It was raining first thing and we had 2 severe weather warnings on our apps. One for severe thunderstorms between 10am and midnight and the other for prolonged heavy rain until midday tomorrow.
    At 7pm the rain stopped and although it was cloudy it was still in the high 20’s with broken sunshine for the rest of the day.
    At 10am we popped out to the shop for the last time to get a small pint of milk and then headed back to make scrambled egg Jaffels and have a cup of tea.
    I randomly kept throwing the odd cup of pellets out for the animals and they came and went.
    At midday we sat down inside and watched the TV for a bit while it clouded over and the temperature really dropped but it didn’t rain and by 2pm the sun tried to come back out. It was at this point in the day we decided to start tidying up and packing our things up.
    We had washed our bedding from kitted Campers and when Ellie opened the front door she was greeted by the mongoose Family. At the same time I came out of the bedroom to see 10 mongoose laying down at the back door waiting for us. We didn’t have any eggs left and I apologised to them and then I remembered I did have some biltong left in the fridge and some drywors leftover from our time in the Kruger. Biltong is like Jerky but made completely differently, it’s not dryed like Jerky it’s cured.
    I opened the front door and started breaking up the drywors first and they loved it. I couldn’t break it up fast enough and I had quite abit there. Most of them got some but the ones that didn’t, didn’t have to wait long because next I had the Biltong and that was already in small pieces so I just put my hand in grabbed a handful and threw it out. They loved that aswell and got through it far quicker than I expected.
    We shut ourselves back in, and as I went back in the bedroom I could see the mongoose in a big huddle sleeping on the ground outside our window. They were well happy.
    After packing what we could and sorting the camper we went for our last meal out. Back to the Giraffe pub and grill where we first ate and I had my last Eisbein of the year until our next journey back. We ate early at 4pm and were back by 5:30pm just as the black clouds rolled in and a rainbow appeared, still there was very little rain.
    Back at the house one lonely Warthog came up and wagged its tail just standing there looking at me. It reminded me of Ella our dog, just staring, giving me the “quick feed me while nobody is looking” eyes and I obliged with 2 big scoops of pellets. She was a very happy warthog with that and truffled around the ground in the hay eating the pellets and grunting with delight until she was joined by 3 others.
    At 6:30pm in the last of the light Ellie put our last banana out for the bushbabies. We’ve been so lucky and feel so privileged to have seen so many bushbabies on this trip and I even had one want to cuddle me.
    We’ve learnt a lot about Marloth Park which is what we wanted and we now know we don’t want to come back in any holiday season. The people are still lovely and this place definitely has a uniqueness you won’t find anywherelse and that’s why we love it.
    At 8pm while watching TV the Bushbaby came out. We paused the TV watching him knowing it would be our last sighting of a live bushbaby for a very long time. It was sad, but we had done our bit for the wildlife in Marloth Park. Tomorrow we would be leaving and it would be someonelses turn to feed the animals and enjoy the place.    Read more

  • Misadventures Of WandaSouth Africa Solo
    Day 22

    Feeding the Animals

    March 23 in South Africa ⋅ ☁️ 24 °C

    We were up at 6am. We haven’t slept a decent nights sleep since we arrived here and last night was no exception. There is a big pillow and a small pillow each on our beds. The big pillow is to big and the small pillow is just slightly to small so either way my neck ends up really hurting and I spend most of the night with a headache that goes as soon as I get up. The bed is also really hard and even Ellie says the same and she likes a hard bed so I feel like I’ve slept on the floor and hurt all over when I do get up. On top of that the duvet is really heavy and too small for the bed so to start with I lay next to the duvet to get to sleep. As the room gets colder because of the air con we both get under the duvet but then spend the rest of the night tossing and turning because we’re too hot under it and too cold without it. Add to that the dryness of the air con our room is abit of a nightmare to sleep in.
    After I’d done my morning workout we had Jaffels for breakfast using some of the eggs we’d saved from the mongoose. Then at 10am we headed back to Daisys Den to get 10kg of pellets and order a bail of hay.
    We got back home at 11am and it was broken cloud today and as soon as the sun came out we just started to burn. Then we’d get a reprieve as it ducked back behind some cloud.
    At 11:30am the hay turned up and I spent 30 minutes breaking it up and spreading it out with some pellets mixed in. An impala stood on the sidelines watching me and grunting the whole time and as soon as I’d finished and retreated to the patio he just stood at the edge of the hay hardly believing he had all of it to himself. Just as he started tucking in to it another 4 turned up and then our 3 resident warthog came back and started snuffling around in the hay and breaking it up looking for the pellets.
    I was now soaked through with sweat and got straight in the pool which was really refreshing and that’s where I stayed for the next 30 minutes watching the animals.
    For the rest of the day we didn’t do much except watch the different animals coming and going. Except for the warthog who ate and ate until they went into a food coma and fell asleep in the hay.
    At 4:30pm we headed out to The Amazing Kruger View for dinner. This was our first time here and it was heaving. We hadn’t booked a table and the waitress said they were all reserved but she found us a small table and seated us.
    The restaurant itself is based in the campsite at the far end of Marloth Park and sits right on the river overlooking the Kruger. It’s west facing so we had the sun setting over the Kruger as we ordered and ate our dinner, and we watched as Hippos swam by with their babies. It was quite an amazing place.
    We left the restaurant at 6pm and headed straight back home and Ellie immediately put some chopped banana in the bowl for the bushbaby and then we went inside and waited for him to turn up. We had the TV on and we could still hear the family at the back of us talking and the kids shouting and whooping. Eventually they shut up at 8:30pm and then the bushbaby came out. He doesn’t like the noise either.
    We watched him for an hour jumping in to the bowl and then bouncing off from tree to tree with banana in his paws and at 9:30pm we called it a day and went to bed.    Read more

  • Misadventures Of WandaSouth Africa Solo
    Day 21

    Hiking Marloth

    March 22 in South Africa ⋅ ☁️ 28 °C

    We were up at 6am to be greeted by Zebra in the garden. Our food pellets are now running low even though we brought 40kg and then an extra 10kg when we arrived back in Marloth. The herd animals can really get through it.
    For breakfast Ellie attempted our first Jaffels with our new Jaffel Iron we brought from the outdoor warehouse. A jaffel is like a really deep filled toastie so it’s an excellent way of using up leftover food for lunches or breakfasts, so today we had scrambled egg and cheese and tomato Jaffels and they were really tasty. The jaffel iron will definitely be travelling with us in the future along with the pie iron.
    At 9am we decided to drive to one of the bird hides before it got too hot and go for a hike. It was already getting warm and unbelievably muggy.
    We spotted an armoured plated skink as soon as we stepped onto the trail and then herds and herds of Impala. The females were the Kruger side of the fence and most of the males were our side staring at them. We could see where the females had dug their way under the fence to get through creating big holes where other animals, including predators could now get in to Marloth. The male’s couldn’t follow them under because of their horns.
    After 3km and 45 minutes we turned around, it was getting really hot now and we’d done a litre of water between us already. Luckily we had another small bottle in the camper.
    When we got back to “little simba” it felt like the surface of the sun inside and I started the engine and whacked the air con right up while we drank the remainder of our drinks. We were dripping in places we didn’t even know we had.
    It’s now the Easter holidays in South Africa and Marloth Park is filling up with holiday makers, coming back to their holiday homes or renting places. All of the roads have turned into game drive tracks with kids hanging out of sunroofs and standing in the back of pickup trucks looking for animals. It’s now a very different very busy place than the one we arrived at.
    We arrived back at the house at midday and 2 days ago the house at the end of our garden which is actually being built had a family turn up. It was already quite a noisy building site but the family that has arrived has absolutely no concept of volume and even though they are 100 meters away from us we can hear every word they are saying. The kids are up at 7am screaming and shouting all day and the parents aren’t much better.
    We can’t understand why you would want to come to a place that’s quiet and full of animals and then scare everything away.
    At 2pm we’d had enough of listening to the neighbours and decided to head to the spar and get some shopping for dinner. On the way out we noticed their neighbours packing lunch stuff into their car and heading out to find somewhere quiet aswell.
    The Spar was a different experience now all the tourists are here and we now know it’s far too small to cope with the influx of tourists. It was really busy and chaotic and we couldn’t wait to get out.
    South African supermarkets don’t have liquor licenses, for alcohol of any kind you have to go to the liquor store which is usually next door, and it’s the same with the Spar and the other convenience store located here. I wanted some beers and popped in, grabbed a six pack and joined the queue of South Africans buying copious amounts of alcohol. We know the South Africans like a drink but the amounts they were buying were crazy. There was an articulated lorry in the car park that was 40ft long and loaded front to bag with floor to ceiling with alcohol. It was all being delivered here. When I just had my lonely six pack the guy at the till kept asking if that’s all I had. I had to say yes, I’m not South African.
    Back at the house the kids at the back were now in the bush veld at the bottom of the garden. They just seem to shout at each other even when they standing next to each other. More families have moved in to other property nearby and even though they aren’t close and we can’t see them, we can hear them all. The place now sounds like a playground.
    I put the TV on and found a music channel to drown out the noise of everyone else. All the animals seemed to have been scared off so we decided to head indoors away from the noise and watch something on TV until dinner time.
    Just as we sat down I noticed movement out the corner of my eye going past the front door. The mongoose had returned.
    Ellie ran for the eggs and I opened the back door.
    There they were sitting on the back steps and Ellie rolled the eggs for them. Some we hard boiled some were still raw.
    They loved the eggs and it was so funny watching them stand on their back legs and crack the eggs open on the floor to get into them. We ended up giving them 20 eggs and they were all gone within 10 minutes. Once the eggs had gone they started snuffing around at the concrete path at the back of the house and digging at the side of it. Then one of them pulled out a big scorpion and ate it. We didn’t even know it was there. That’s why it’s good to have mongoose at the house.
    Once they had eaten they all cuddled up under a tree a went to sleep. They are just like ferrets.
    At 5pm after watching some TV we headed back outside and there were Kudu waiting for us with babies. I managed to hand feed them the last of our food and felt very guilty when we ran out. They’re very good at the puppy dog eyes.
    We had dinner whilst the warthogs stood all around us making us feel guilty and then as it got dark I set the camera up ready for a bit of bushbaby bothering. Then Ellie put the food out and we headed back indoors for the night to watch TV while we waited for the bushbabies.
    They turned up late tonight at 9pm and I was ready to give up when 2 turned up and I managed to video them. Then with load shedding in place for the next 2.5 hours we headed to bed to cook overnight.    Read more

  • Misadventures Of WandaSouth Africa Solo
    Day 20

    Our first rest day

    March 21 in South Africa ⋅ ☁️ 24 °C

    We were awake at 5:30am and up at 6am. I peaked out the back curtains to see a bunch of Warthog laying down waiting for us to get up. I made coffee whilst Ellie undone the patio doors and then we through out a bucket of food. From nowhere a flurry of animals turned up that we didn’t even know were there. Impala, Kudu, more warthog. We felt abit sorry for the warthog that had been waiting for us all night.
    At 8am the animals started to leave but then a family of Mongoose came by. They all sat eagerly at the bottom of the patio to see if we would feed them. Unfortunately we had run out of eggs so Ellie gave them a cut up plum. They didn’t seem overly impressed with fruit so I promised them eggs for later and then they ran off.
    At 9am we went to Daisys Den, the game food store to get some more animal feed. This time we only brought 10kg of pellets but we ordered some hay to be delivered later. Then we went back to the house to wait for the hay. Just as we pulled into the drive I said “we forgot to get the eggs”. Ellie said “ don’t worry about it the mongoose probably won’t come back” so we went inside and I opened the patio doors, sat down with a cup of tea and then the mongoose came around the side of the house and up onto the patio and sat on the steps just staring at us.
    Bollocks……… I knew I should have gone back for eggs.
    I told the mongoose I’d forgotten but it was Ellie’s fault because I said we’d go back and she said no. They gave her a very guilty look and then went and sat by the camper.
    I made Ellie finish her tea and then we locked up, set the alarms, weaved our way through the family of mongoose to the camper and set off back to the shops. We brought a huge tray of 36 eggs and Ellie hard boiled 18 of them and then we waited and waited but the mongoose didn’t return.
    The hay delivery turned up and Ellie and I carried it to the back and broke it up and within minutes we had a herd of impala and warthog snuffling around trying to get the pellets we had buried in the hay.
    For the rest of the day we just chilled out. Ellie wasn’t feeling great probably because of the lack of sleep so she went for a lay down and once all the animals had finished messing about in the hay I went inside and watched the tablet for a bit.
    At 5pm we headed out for dinner, back to the giraffe pub & grill and I found an Eisbein on the menu. This is the first one I’d had since we got here. Eisbein is pork on the bone, slow cooked until it’s falling off and the wrapped in breadcrumbs and deep fried. It’s a German dish and is served with sauerkraut and is probably the best crackling you can get. I really enjoyed it.
    We got back to the house at 6:30pm and Ellie put bananas out for the bushbabies. Then we put the TV on and turned all the lights off so we could see outside. I’d already decided I was having a night off from being a bushbaby botherer.
    At 7pm movement caught our eye outside and we watched the bowl on the fence while a bushbaby jumped from the tree onto the bowl and grabbed a piece of banana. As he jumped off another smaller one jumped from a different branch into the bowl. Wow, we had 2 bushbabies.
    We sat inside watching as at first they took it in turns to jump in the bowl then they got in together. They looked like they were having a bath.
    By 8pm Ellie was done for the day and as load shedding was happening between 9pm and 11pm we decided to go to bed and put the air con on to start to cool the room down. I sat up until 9:30pm watching the tablet whilst Ellie went straight to sleep.    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

  • 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 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 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

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