Kruger Park Safari with Juliet Watson from the 14th to the 18th July 2011

We picked up Juliet at the University of Pretoria and transferred her through to Nelspruit, where we changed from our closed microbus into one of our open safari vehicles. After the short trip via White River, we reached the Numbi gate of the Kruger National Park. After check in procedures, and a safari briefing we made our way down to the camp of Pretoriuskop where we were going to stay for the first two nights. Upon reaching the camp and checking in, guests were given the time to enjoy lunch and have a short rest before leaving on there first game drive at 15h30. The first afternoons game drive was a slow affair as there was a huge number of visiting South African in the park due to the South African School holidays. Although this was the case, we still managed to find rhino and elephant as well as a good number of impala, kudu and zebra.

We returned to camp at 17h30 in time before the gates of the camp closed for the night.

After enjoying a good meal in the camps restaurant, it was off to bed in order to get a good nights rest before having to get up early the next morning to leave on the days game drive.

The next morning, it was up early and due to the weather the previous day we had decided to leave about a half an hour later to give it time to warm up so the animals could be out for us when on the game drive. We enjoyed tea and coffee at about 06h30, and left on the game drive at 06h45. We drove down the Napi road,but we were soon alerted to a sighting of twenty one lions at the transport dam (The same dam were the "Battle in Kruger" was filmed.) we decided to make our way in that direction. It was not long before we reached the dam and got to see a large pride of lions on the opposite side of the dam. After a good sighting and being able to watch them for nearly forty minutes, we received another call to say that some of the other open safari vehicles had found a cheetah lying on the termite mound next to the road. We watched for quite a while and then the cheetah suddenly got up, marked some territory and went and stood right behind our vehicle. He suddenly crossed over the road and started crouching as if wanting to charge down something. It was not long before some impala crossed his path, but alas they were to far away for a chase. After a while, we decided to make our way onto breakfast at the Nkhulu Picnic Spot. After a good breakfast, it was off again to find those elusive animals. We managed to get good sightings of rhino, elephant, buffalo and many of the antelope species as well as good sightings of numerous birds, but the cats still eluded us. We returned to camp in the late afternoon, and enjoyed a good dinner and then it was off to bed as everybody felt tired from a long day aboard the open safari vehicle.

The following morning, it was off at the same time as the day before after having enjoyed tea and coffee. Numerous animals were spotted during the day. Upon taking the Napi road back to the camp in the afternoon, we came across a pride of lions lying next to the road. We had a good sighting of the lions and decided to come back later to see if we could perhaps find them walking on the road. we left the camp on an afternoons game drive and made our way in the direction of the lions. Upon arriving at the place there was no sighn of the lions, only tell tale sighns that they had been there. We decided to make our way up the road to see if we could find more rhino and would return there later. 

We found some rhino about 10km's up the road, and after a good sighting we dedcided to reurn to see if the lions had maybe come out onto the road. as we came around the corner in the road where the lions had been we saw them coming out of the thick bush towards the road, at this stage we were the only vehicle and as the lions were walking in the opposite direction, we turned the vehicle around and followed them. After a good sighting they slowly made there way off the road and into the bush, but as they were not far from a road, we made our way down there to see if we could cut them off to get even better visuals of them. We went a short way down the road and due to the time decided it was a good thing to turn back as it was still quite a distance from the camp. We made our way back up the road and to our surprise we found the lions lying on top of the rocks not too far off the road. After we had enjoyed a good sighting, it was off back to Pretoriuskop camp arriving about 10 minutes after gate closing time. Everybody was in high spirits due to the good lion sighting and after a good dinner, it was off to bed for a good nights sleep.


The next morning it was up early again and after packing the bags as we were moving camp to Skukuza, after enjoying tea and coffee, we left camp for the final full day game drive. The morning started off slowly with good sightings of rhino, elephant and buffalo. We took a drive through to the picnic spot "Tshokwane" were we enjoyed breakfast and even had a vervet monkey steal some jam off the plate. Afterwards we left and took a drive down the H10 getting good sightings of rhino, elephant with also large herds of Zebra and Wildebeest being seen as well. We stopped off at the camp of Lower Sabie for a break and then took a drive to "Sunset Dam" were we stopped off to watch large numbers of crocodiles and hippos. Some good bird species were also seen at the dam. We left "Sunset Dam" and drove back in the direction of Skukuza coming past "Millenium Dam", we got a good sighting of giraffe drinking and a white rhino wallowing in the mud. Some great photos were got by everybody. All the way back to Skukuza. Guests had a good break for the rest of the afternoon, as Juliet was going on her night drive that left at 20h00 and returned at 22h00. We enjoyed dinner at the restaurant prior to Juliet going on the night drive, and once she had left everybody went off to have a good nights sleep, before the early start the following day.


The following morning, it was up early and after packing everything and enjoying tea and coffee, we left the camp and made our way down in the direction of the Sabie River for the last time before going in for breakfast, . After breakfast, we started our drive to the gate in order for Juliet to meet her transfer back to Johannesburg.


Feedback from the guests were that they had a wonderful time although they did not get to see a leopard, and will be back in the near future to do another safari to the Kruger National Park with us. Juliet was taken back to her guest house for two nights and then was flying on to Tanzania to visit a friend stating there.