We spent two nights at the Drifters Bushveld Camp and one night at a camp inside the Kruger Park. During the days we went on various exciting game drives and game walks, seeing lots of different African wildlife. After leaving the Kruger Park, we drove to the small town of Hazyview and stayed at Drifters Hazyview Inn.

Day 4 - June 30

We were woken up at 0600 by a guy outside our tent, shouting "Happy Campers! Rise and shine! Happy Campers!" It turned out to be our field guide, Kurt. I had slept quite well that night even though the tent wasn't the most comfortable accommodation I've stayed in.

After the morning routine, and eating a light breakfast, we were ready to go on our first gamewalk. The sun was just about to come up so it was still quite cold, though. The tracker Edward was leading us as we walked from our camp and straight into the wilderness. Everyone had to be very quiet to avoid scaring away the animals.

It wasn't very long before we spotted our first zebras. Unfortunately, we didn't get a good look at them this time because they quickly ran away when they became aware of us. However, this would not be our last chance of seeing zebras, as we would soon discover that they were really common in this part of Africa. They are really marvellous animals in our opinion.

As we were walking, Edward would occasionally stop to show us special trees, plants and various other things, and tell us about them. This was very interesting to listen to as it was clear that he possessed a huge amount of knowledge about nature and wildlife.

In total we walked for around three hours, but unfortunately we didn't see too many animals on this walk. The lack of animals didn't spoil the excitement of walking around in the wild African bush, though.

Apart from the zebras we saw various antilopes, but the highlight came as we were almost back at the camp. Edward had just stopped and asked us in which direction we thought our camp was. Nobody had any idea, so there were guesses for almost all possible directions, while in reality we were just a few hundred meters away. However, in the bush, the scenery looks more or less the same in any direction, so it was quite easy to lose one's sense of direction.

On walking the last few meters to the camp, we came across a large group of giraffes. We stood there for a while watching them from a reasonable distance, without any of them seeming very bothered by our presence. After some time they ran away though, but I'm not sure whether this had anything to do with us.

Returning to the camp, we ate a brunch consisting mainly of bread and cold beans. Then we had several hours to just relax. Most people opted for lying in the sun around the pool. This gave us the opportunity to update our travel diaries.

Around 1500 we were ready for our first game drive. For this occasion we used a special open car. It had a seat at the front of the car where Edward would sit, enabling him to spot the animals more easily for us, while Kurt was driving. If any of us had been sitting in that seat, I think we would have been more concerned about not falling off than trying to spot wildlife. On the dust roads we were driving, the car bumped up and down quite a lot, but Edward did not seem to have any problems staying in his seat. I guess that he probably had some practise doing this.

After driving for ten minutes, the car started making some funny noises. We stopped at a nice white gate which seemed quite misplaced in the middle of nowhere. We couldn't quite figure out the purpose of this gate, as it could easily be bypassed by walking around it. Anyway, Kurt radioed the other tracker, Van, and told him to bring the other car. He arrived ten minutes later, enabling us to switch cars and get on with our gamedrive.

The area in which we drove apparently was a socalled private reserve, actually belonging to Drifters. There were a lot of such private areas right outside the Kruger park. They were all fenced in, even though they were very large properties. In the beginning we drove for a few kilometers along such a fence, which was quite annoying since it ruined the feeling of untouched wilderness. Kurt explained that in some of the other private areas you could go hunting, but this was usually very expensive.

We drove for a total of around two and a half hours before stopping at a camp site in the middle of the bush. During the drive we again saw lots of zebras, some giraffes and many different antilopes (mostly impala).

Our site was sort of on top of a small hill, and while we were sitting around the fire somebody spotted a strange animal (whose name I don't quite remember) walking around. It looked quite weird, though!

All around was complete darkness and no other people. This was the perfect setting for Kurt to tell us that only a short while ago, some Drifters people had met a lion there. Personally I wasn't too bothered by that. I thought it only added to the excitement of being right in the heart of wild Africa. However, May Tina was slightly worried and the rest of the evening she had a feeling that something was watching from the darkness, ready to eat her.

I was also growing more and more fond of the bush landscape. For some reason, I had expected the scenery to be greener and more of the "jungle" type, and was at first kind of disappointed with this low, yellow and very dry bush vegetation. However, it was still very fascinating in its own way, and certainly had its charm. In retrospect I keep wondering how the scenery would have looked in the summertime. I guess it would probably be much more beautiful from an estetic point of view, in that it would have been greener and more lively. On the other hand, with higher grass and more leaves on the trees, it would have been more difficult to spot the animals. While I had initially been wanting more of a "jungle" scenery, May Tina had been hoping for large open fields full of animals. However, although none of us got exactly what we expected, we enjoyed what were getting. A large part of the fun in travelling to a new place is comparing expectations with reality.

Another thing that surprised me was that the bush was rather quiet at night. There were some animals that were making some noise, but not as much as expected. Some groups of hyenas and jackals were screaming to eachother from different places, but that was more or less it.

At the camp, Kurt took charge of most of the cooking and made a barbecue, which in South Africa is known as a "braai". We ate various meat together with salad and baked potatoes, and even had some "fruit" with vanilla sauce for dessert. It was all delicious!

Having finished dinner, we packed our stuff and around 2000 we went on a nightly game drive, which would eventually lead us back to our main camp. Since it was totally dark, Edward was sitting at his seat in front of the car holding a huge flashlight which he continously swiped from side to side, searching for animals.

In the beginning we thought this was really exciting, but this feeling subsided after a while, mainly for two reasons. Firstly, we didn't see any animals at all, but more importantly, it was very cold to drive around in the open car! We were really glad we had brought extra clothing. If we had only been wearing shorts and t-shirts on that drive, we would definitely have frozen to death or at least have turned seriously ill. Quite interesting that it got so cold at night, though. One doesn't usually associate Africa with low temperatures! On the other hand, we were visiting in the middle of the winter, so it wasn't that surprising after all.

At around 2130 we were back at our camp, and what did we see there - a large crowd of giraffes! Quite amusing to find the giraffes at our camp after we'd been driving all over the place looking for them! The giraffes seemed to be everywhere around us, on both sides of the road and in the middle of the road! This was definitely our best view of animals so far.

Getting out of the car, we more or less went straight to bed after having brushed our teeth etc. None of us had any problems falling asleep that night. It had been our first "real" day in Africa, and the new impressions had been coming at us all the time. Things were really looking promising for the rest of the holiday, now that Lufthansa was not around to screw things up for us.

Day 5 - July 1

In order for us to arrive early at the Kruger Park, we had to get up at 0400 (!). After eating a light breakfast and packing all our stuff into the car, we were ready to leave the bush camp an hour later.

Our car was a minibus (Mercedes Sprinter) with 13 seats, which meant that there was one empty seat since we were only 12 persons. None of us, except Kurt who was driving, were sitting in the same seat every day. Since some seats were considered better than others, we had an informal system of seat rotation.

Packing the car was also easier said than done. Strict planning was needed to fit all the baggage into the back together with all our equipment, food etc.

We arrived at the Orpen gate of the Kruger Park at 0600, just as they were opening.

The park is named after Paul Kruger who established the socalled Sabie Game Reserve in 1898. This reserve has later been expanded to what is now the Kruger park, probably the most famous wildlife park in the world. It is a very huge area, roughly 60km east-west and 350km north-south, so the animals are not really restricted in any way.

Kurt explained that is was illegal to leave the car, except for the camp sites and a few designated areas. As we entered, my first surprise was the road which was tarred, quite unlike the dusty roads we'd been used to from yesterday. The landscape was pretty much the same as yesterday though, bush all over and mostly very flat.

We hadn't been driving for long when we stopped to watch the sunrise. The sunrise and sunset in Africa is really spectacular, being completely red (and there were never any clouds to obstruct the view). I was amazed at how fast the sun came up. There were only a few minutes between it first appearing and all of it being visible.

Except for a short stop at Satura to buy some snacks, we drove around the park until 1200, seeing lots of animals, including elephant, hippo (though most of it was under water), crocodile (very far away),buffalo, baboons, zebra, giraffe, impala, wildebeest and waterbuck.

Typically, we would be driving along for a while without seeing anything except bush. Then, suddenly, someone would spot an animal somewhere and we would stop the car. After stopping, and looking around, we would very often notice that a whole group of animals in the area, in addition to the one which made us stop in the first place. It is definitely not an easy job to spot the animals, and one wonders how many sightings we missed out on during our time in the Kruger Park. However, having said that, Kurt was very good at finding animals. Nearly all of our sightings were seen by him first.

Around noon we stopped at a camp site to eat lunch. Lots of people were already there. As we were getting out of the car, a guy came running over to us, saying that a snake had crawled under our car while we were parking. Looking at the ground, we could see that a snake had crawled there, and its track really stopped right under our car! Kurt used a stick to poke under the car, trying to scare it away, but nothing happened.

Then, suddenly, an Indian guy discovered that the snake was under his car, and not our car! The attention of the crowd, which had gathered around, now shifted to his car. Apparently (although I couldn't see it), the snake was hanging under the car, right next to the rear wheels. This guy also tried using a stick to force it out, but with no luck. The snake was still there. Then he got into the car and started driving around the parking lot, hoping that this would make the snake come out. Having no such luck, he then parked the car half inside some high grass, hoping that this would tempt the snake out of there if it was just left alone.

People stood around for a while waiting for some action, but when nothing happened the crowd started to dissolve. Rumours had it that the snake was a mamba, so we kept wondering how safe it was to stand around like that in the first place. However, since everyone else was doing it, we figured it couldn't be that dangerous, even if it really was a mamba.

Suddenly the snake appeared, quickly crawled a few meters across the area, and up the nearest tree. Now I could see it for the first time. It was green, less than a meter long, and among the leaves it was very difficult to spot, unless you knew it was there. Kurt said that it was a Boomslang. I had never heard of this snake before, but according to Kurt, it had the same poison as a mamba, but was less aggressive (fortunately!). According to Kurt, a mamba might have attacked if it had been caught in the same situation, making it a rather bad idea to stand around like everyone had been doing.

After eating our self-prepared sandwiches for lunch, we continued the game drive until around 1730, when we arrived at a camp site in Pretoriuskop. There was a large store inside the camp where one could buy almost everything from food to souvenirs. We got there just in time to buy some food and drinks before the store closed.

Accommodation here was in some very nice cylindrical huts (two persons in each), and the camp site seemed to have all kinds of facilities, like proper toilets and showers as well.

To share the workload more fairly, we were divided into various teams that would rotate on helping with dinner, helping with washing-up and not doing anything. May Tina, Julie and I were in the same team, and would start with three days of washing-up duty.

There were several open-air kitchens available where guests could prepare their own food. This day we had Beef Stroganoff with rice for dinner, another good meal.

Since the camp site was so modern, we didn't really have the same feeling of being in the middle of the African wilderness, as the two previous nights. May Tina was happier with this than I was. However, fortunately, several impalas were running around inside the camp, reminding us of our whereabouts.

After dinner we helped with washing up, and then we both went to have a shower. The toilet and bathroom facilities were quite good. We went to bed around 2200. The beds were just wonderful. After first going two nights without sleep and then sleeping rather uncomfortably in a tent for two nights, this was just heaven! I fell asleep almost immediately, so I didn't get to really enjoy for very long the wonderful experience of just lying in a soft bed.

Day 6 - July 2

We got up at 0530 after having slept very well during the night, ate some yoghurt for breakfast, packed everything into the car and left the camp area around 0630. The first part of this day would turn out to be quite similar to yesterday. We drove around in the Kruger until around 1200 when we stopped at another campsite in Skukuza. A small difference was that today we drove on dust roads most of the time, instead of tarred roads. Even though you get very dirty from all the dust, I prefer these roads since they give a better wilderness experience than the tarred ones.

Today was our last chance of seeing a lion in the Kruger, so everybody was on the lookout for this animal. Although we saw lots of impala, zebras, giraffes and other common animals, we were now quite used to them, so nobody got that excited when they were seen.

Our hopes of seeing a lion was growing smaller as time went by, but suddenly Kurt saw something. He quickly put the car into reverse and went back a few meters. "That's your lion over there, on the right", he said. At first it was difficult to see anything, but then suddenly something was moving, and for a few seconds we could see the lion around 150-200 meters away before some vegetation got in the way again. We only had a brief glance at it, but there was no doubt it was really lion, so everybody were quite excited.

Just after seeing the lion, we also got very close to several buffalos which were crossing the road just in front of us. Finally, we also saw a rhino (although it was also quite far away), making it 4 sightings of the Big 5. Only a leopard sighting was now missing. Another special sight was two lizard which were spotted when we were crossing a small stream.

Another highlight came when we stopped at somewhere called Lake Panic, supposedly a good place for seeing birds. The vegetation around reminded me a lot of the Everglades in Florida. We didn't really see any fancy birds, nor crocodiles, but there were plenty of turtles in the water. However, most interesting were some really strange and ugly fish. By spitting in the water, we could bring these fish to the surface, as they would all come up attempting to swallow the spit! (yuk!) If anyone had seen us, I wonder what they would have thought about this large group of people, most of whom were preoccupied with spitting like crazy into the water!

After eating tuna sandwiches for lunch at Skukuza, we left the Kruger park and headed towards the small village of Hazyview. Except for Johannesburg airport, everything we had seen of South Africa so far had been out in the wilderness, so we were quite excited about returning to "civilization".

The highway towards Hazyview was in excellent condition and the speed limit was 120 km/h. However, it quickly became clear to us that people weren't that obsessed with speed limits here in South Africa, as most cars were doing at least 130-140 km/h.

As we approached Hazyview, it became clear to us that most blacks in this area were very poor. At least most of the houses we saw along the road were really small and not of a very high standard, although there were a few exceptions. This wasn't much of a surprise to us, as we knew that the standard of living for the black population was not very high. What did surprise us, though, was the huge amount of people walking along the highway. As mentioned, most cars were doing at least 130-140 km/h, and the way many people were driving, this didn't seem like a very safe place to walk.

As we got closer to Hazyview, more and more houses (or maybe shacks is a better word to describe some of them) were appearing on both sides of the road, while more and more blacks were walking along the highway. It was quite obvious that this was a black area, as there were no white persons to be seen anywhere.

Another thing that I remember very clearly in connection with our first meeting with African civilization was the smell. The air smelled of burning things, and this smell would later turn out to be very common all over Southern Africa.

We stopped to buy food and drinks at a shopping mall outside Hazyview. We figured that maybe this could be where all the people walking on the highway were headed. After shopping, we drove straight to the Drifters Hazyview Inn, which was located a little bit outside of Hazyview itself. The Inn was very nice, and seemed like a perfect place to spend the evening and the night. The Sabie river was flowing just next to it, making the vegetation around very green and "tropic". Accomodation was in double rooms.

After unpacking, we made a short walk around the area. Some of us tried bathing in the river, but this turned out to be a rather cold experience. The rest of the day was spent relaxing. It was great to get some spare time for updating our diaries. For dinner we had chicken and rice, with ice for dessert. Another excellent dinner. Went to bed around 2200.