A trip to the area would not be complete without a peek at Gods Window and Bourke’s luck Potholes.
The viewpoint called God’s Window looks from the highveld down and over the expanse of the lowveld and is not to be missed. I can only compare it to the majesty of the Grand Canyon although not quite as jaw dropping it comes a close second in the view department. In my opinion the higher viewpoint called “Wonder view” is better than the one from God’s Window and is less crowded and with no tour buses. The height makes you immediately think …
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Back in sunny Cape Town after a glorious 2 weeks in the bush. It feels more like a month!
I have got long distance driving out of my system for a while now and would definitely do the train if I had to go back right now. The drive back felt very long and 2 Red Bulls and a gallon of coffee had no noticeable effect on the pixies I was seeing on the roadside.
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Yesterday , we got up early and had booked at the skyways treetop ride above the rainforest canopy. It is run from the Gecko Lodge on the Sabie Road in Hazyview, and take groups of up to 8 up to the top of hill by Land Rover and then you chicane down or what we call in South Africa a “Foofy Slide”. I don’t know how it got that name, but it is quite ubiquitous here. The forest is lush and thickly wooded with indigenous trees, which is quite rare for the area, as SAPPI ((South African Paper Product Incorporated) guess) has planted thin pine almost everwhere for use in the countries toilet paper etc.
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The Hazyview shopping centre which 5 years ago was reminiscent of Sierra Leone is now an edifice of gleaming marble and boutiques (relatively). I even found limes in the Pick ‘n Pay!. I can’t even find lime’s in Cape Town on a regular basis. This area is really geared up for the tourism boom and should provide great creature comforts to apprehensive travelers. Definately buy some of the wonderfull fruit from the street vendors. The lowveld is the premier growing region for subtropical fruit in SA. The mango’s and avocado’s are killer.
There seems to be countless new and interesting tours, …
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We got up very early this morning 05:00 to go for a game drive in the park. The gates open at 05:30 in time to catch the big five brushing thier teeth. It gets so hot later in the day, that most animals seek shelter and are simply out of sight. Many visitors make the mistake of going too late/early and complain about not seeing anything. Our first drive was to Skukuza camp and then out by the Numbi gate, its around 100km round trip. We saw a lone “rogue” elephant, 2 black Rhino, Giraffe, Zebra, Water Buffalo, Wart Hog, Eland, Bush Buck and tons of Spring buck. Thats pretty good going if you ask me. None of the big cats were ont he menu, but I am exstatic to see Rhino. We also saw hornbill and the famed lilac breasted roller. Skukuza camp has also improved thier facilities greatly. It used to resemble a prison mess hall and was overrun with alien starlings. It is now quite swish and hordes of fluffy fruit bats have taken up residence under the thatched boma’s where the starlings once roosted (and pooped). You can sit and have a spot of lunch overlooking the river bubbling with crocs and hippo’s. Entrance to the Kruger park is R30 ($4) for South Africans and R120 ($15) for tourists, so bring along your SA i.d, passport or drivers license of you have/bought one, or you will likely pay the full price.
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It’s tough to get back in to work after being on holiday and I am already planning to escape to Madagascar or thereabouts.
My impressions of the Kruger park have changed somewhat for the better. The facilities are greatly improved and have a “swish” factor that for sure did not exist 5 years ago. Also the whole surrounding area has gone through a major revamp and the towns of Nelspruit, White River and Hazyview are almost unrecognisable. Real coffee from a real espresso machine was obtainable from all of the larger rest camps within the park, in times gone by this …
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We did another long game drive today from the Phabeni gate to the Orpen dam and then circled around to come out of the Kruger National Park Gate. It took about 7 hours or so and saw some incredible scenery. There are 2 lookout points that you must not miss if you are in the area. The hide at Orpen dam and the Nkumbe lookout, which overlooks miles of plains.
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Hippo’s only feed at night and can travel large distances in their search for enough short grass to fill them up. Every night at 6:30pm the wardens here open the gates to let the hippo’s out to graze on the fairways and also down to the Sabie river banks. There are 25 hippo’s in the lake and come out tentatively one by one and are only seperated from you by a single strand of electric wire and little pole which the daddy hippo would use as a toothpick. Out of the 25 I saw one baby hippo, about as big as a medium sized dog, scampering around trying to stay in his mommy’s shadow. Glad I did not bring my Jack Russel, Maxy, he would have been in there trying to play with it staright away.
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We have now left the Kruger park lodge and are staying in the Sabi River Sun, a very lush and sweeping country club with a famous 18 hole golf course. (I don’t own any closed shoes so I don’t think they will let me play) our chalet in in the most picturesque setting on the banks of a huge hippo and croc filled lake on the edge of the course. The sounds of the hippos grunting is a nice reminder of where you are. The hippo’s are fenced in by a 1 foot high wooden beam and a single strand of electric wire… surely any self respecting 4 ton hippo could trounce that fence and be on our porch licketysplit. Seemingly they are happy wallowing in the water all day and at night sections of the fence are opened to allow the to go and feed by the banks of the Sabie, not sure why they would come back by morning, but they do. No satelite television out of the resort probably.
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The Kruger Park Lodge is just as great as I remember it, a rolling 9 hole golf course, herds of Springbok on the fairways and vervet Monkeys in the trees. At night you have to keep a keen watch for hippos as they take a walkabout to graze as soon as it gets dark. It is located on Portia Shebanga road, which was formely Paul Kruger Road, part of the sweeping name changes that are confusing anyone and infuriating the map makers. The local Hazyview gazette put out a request for anyone who could tell them who she is. The …
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