Kruger National Park, South Africa's largest and most famous National Park boasts over 147 mammal species, including the big five: the African Elephant, the Leopard, the Lion, the White Rhino and the Water Buffalo.
Out of the big five, only the Leopard eluded us. Dan, Dora and Chris M. were fortunate enough to see 3 of the 225 Cheetahs in the National Park. This is no small feat considering the park is as large as Israel.
We stayed at Skakusa rest camp for 6 glorious nights, taking full advantage of the time we had there: we passed our days doing self-drives over the innumerable paved and gravel roads, doing bush walks and taking sunset drives.
My personal highlights, in no particular order, were:
- Tracking rhinos in the bush.
- Having a male elephant blocking the road, protecting his family from the gawking tourists inching closer in their cars.
- Playing golf and having hippos in the water hazards and warthogs on the greens.
- Nightly visits from a male and female hyena who we cleverly named Henry and Henrietta.
- Giraffes and zebras sharing the same watering-hole in a postcard worthy moment (as seen in
the introductory photograph above).
- The ultimate treat was witnessing a pride of 5 lions walking inches from our vehicle at sunset
on our final evening.
It was incredible to witness the animals in their natural habitat and it was remarkable to see the sheer size of these elegant beasts. We were extremely fortunate to see everything (except the stupid leopard), despite the fact that animal sightings are solely by chance and no one forces the animals to be in view.
There is not much more I can say about this wonderful experience, because the memories and visual images from Kruger are far more beautiful than I can ever express in words.
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