Kruger Adventures I

Today is Valentine`s day and a happy day for Canada as one of their heroes just collected his gold medal on home soil in the 2010 Vancouver Olympic Games. I am watching it on TV. Winter sports are great I just wish more Hungarian competitors could qualify ! We are blessed with a great country but not enough mountains and snow and yeah sponsors for all these.
Happy V-day for everyone out there even if I am not fond of this commercialized holiday !
For Tarryn and me every day is a V-day and as we are working on our great future and living in the present and future I want to tell U more about last years biggest adventure of ours: The Kruger Park. So many of U have asked me about it, so here is a little memoir of our first safari together with Tarryn in South Africa.

To have an idea how big the largest game reserve In Africa is here are some numbers: It covers 19,000 sq kms (7,300 sq mi) and it extends 350 km from north to south and 60km from east to west. Its like Hungary from top to bottom. It takes a while to drive thru, but this is not a speed track, actually quite the opposite: the slower you drive the more chance you have to see the amazing wildlife and you reduce the chance to run over the inhabitants of this enclosed area.

The Park has 9 main gates that allow entrance to different camps. Tarrynitjie and myself started our adventurous journey from the southern gate, Malelane and our first destination was Skukuza rest camp.








We made reservations well in advance and everyone should do the same way to avoid some unpleasant surprise. During the 2010 year mainly due to the World Cup many visitors booked most of the rest camps already.

There are asphalt roads connecting the main camps and and many dirt roads you can go, as well, if you decide to be rougher and you have the right vehicle to do so.

Both Tarr and myself are fond of nature, appreciate it and with enough patience and luck you can see a lot of wildlife from the beginning. It was amazing to see the herds of impalas grazing by the road as this is the safest area from predators. One fatal mistake to do is to get out of your car as you can easily become the prey of the big cats. There are about 90 thousands impalas but it still quite a sight to see them all the time, especially when they are running away with huge jumps and acting like forest acrobats.

We visited the park in spring when you can see the cubs and young ones of all the animals. Its quite a treat, I can tell and had many nice moments from the beginning. After couple of hours we got to see our first zebra baby. There are close to 18,000 Bruchell`s Zebras in the park.

We were driving along the roads the whole day and were amazed at the sights of these wild animals.

As the climate is subtropical here our first day was a typical humid and hot Kruger day. It was sweaty we can tell !

Toward Skukuza we had a ride along a river. It was a beautiful sunset and above all we saw a crocodile patiently waiting for a pray.

Our bungalow at the rest camp was very good with AC and shower, a real luxury in the wild. But the loud and wheezing sound of the water horses - the hippos reminded us where we were.
The following day gave us some fantastic surprises, which we will never forget. As soon as the sun rose Tarryn and I... more to come soon