Kruger National Park. The Big One.
We crossed into the Kruger National Park at the Punda Maria Gate in the north. Kruger National Park was where we were expecting to see all of “The Big 5″, which are the big five animals that hunters used to come to Africa to hunt, namely lion, leapord, buffalo, elephant and rhino. Now that times have changed, most of the shooting is done witha camera not a gun, but there are sadly still private game reserves where you can go and hunt these animals for the “thrill” of the hunt. As per our usual national park wildlife hunting method, we opened the windows and drove slowly, stopping occasionally to scan the horizon with binoculars. As it had rained heavily in recent months, the foliage was eye-strainingly dense on the side of the road and it was difficult to see any animals at all for the first day. Some notable difference between Kruger and other National Parks that we’ve visited were the paved roads, and the throngs of other tourists driving at high speed, which made it feel more like a drive through zoo than a wild, natural reserve. Some of the best experiences at Kruger on the first day were sitting quietly at on of the hides, which were usually build around a watering hole, looking for animals with our binoculars. We were fortunate enough to spot one of the last 100 wild saddle billed storks.
By the end of the first day we were exhausted from staring into the dense brush and put down camp at the Tzendze Rustic Camp site. The camp site was pleasantly empty and from our little corner, we could see no other campers. We went about setting up camp; Erika popped up the tent and I went about cooking a dinner of bagged noodle. From next to our campfire day turned to night with a spectacular sunset show as we played yachtzee and drank wine. After a while we were covered in a thick blanket of starsand the intense hiss of millions of cicadas. The cicadas were actually so loud that we needed to yell at each other. For a while we enjoyed the warm night air until the rather large cicadas started dive bombing our headlamps, causing Erika to shriek, run around in circles and swat wildly at the air. Erika eventually retreated to the bug free tent where she was content with the attacking cicadas at bay. (Did I mention they can’t hurt humans?). It was a hot night in our little tent, with temperatures up in the low 30′s. We woke at sunrise the next morning to do some early morning game viewing. In the early morning hours, the animals tend to be more active, as they visit watering holes or settle down after a night of hunting. We were significantly more successful catching a herd of elephants lazily crossing the road net to the Olifants River, as well quite a few water buck, nyala, springbok, and even a few hippos cooling in the river.
For lunch we stopped at one of the Kruger reststops which was perched on a high cliff overlooking the Olifants River where we watched hippo, elephant and giraffe play while we lunched on toasted cheese and tomato sandwiches and some nice cold, draft beer.
We rounded off the day of game viewing encountering a family of rhino, a pack of vervit monkeys, baboons, and baby warthogs. Warthogs are truely some of the oddest creatures I’ve encountered. They’re monstrous heads, which unfortunately account for almost a full third of their bodies, are shaped like a dark grey canvas strectched over a large saddle from the front of which protrude two gnarly tusks, furthur up the long face are two pairs of odd protruberance, capped off by a small set of beady eyes and a couple of squashed ears. They eat in the most unusual fashion by craling around with their front legs bent, undoubtedly to make up for some anantomical incongruity. They have terrible vision and will stare at you until you get quite close, at which point they realize they want nothing to do with you and shoot their litle duster like tail vertically into the air, about face and prance off quite daintily into some cover. Viewing animals in their natural habitat I’m consistenly surprised by the way they move. I guess it’s something that isn’t conveyed very well by television of movies. Elephants move laboriously, you can almost hear the sound of wood creaking as in a old ship as they lumber along, pushing down trees and ripping off branches, the rhino on the other hand is quite dainty when it moves, contrasting its heavy structure by prancing delicately as it runs. The most beautiful of all is the giraffe, which glides across the landscape gracefully, as though suspended from its head. Inspite of it’s seemingly awkward, elongated body, it’s legs move fluidly with its long neck and head floating easily over it’s body. I can frankly say that I’ve never seen anything quite so beautiful as a group of giraffe running in a line along a river. The same elegance is not applied to interacting with things at ground level, let’s say water, they splay their legs out akimbo and crane down their long legs. It’s actually quite humourous to watch.
We made it all the way through the park and out the sourtherly gate of Orpen where we searched for the recently renamed backpackers, which, shocking, I know, was impossible to find. We ended up asking at a restaurant if there were any accomdation near by and we were directed to JoLyne B&B in Klasserie. A lovely place with warm, welcoming owners who were very happy to serve us a simple but very delicious dinner and a few cold beers while telling stories of wonderful places in Africa.
