Indholdsfortegnelse for 2017 i go!

I’ve yet to meet someone who doesn’t love the Kruger Park. While I was compiling this guide, I spoke to several SANParks staff members and most of them have worked in the park for at least 10 years – some for nearly three decades! How many workplaces offer that kind of job satisfaction? What makes the Kruger so special? It’s a total assault on the senses. There are animals everywhere. No matter where you are in the park, stand still for a minute or two and you’ll see or hear something: the call of a woodland kingfisher, a nervous impala, a dung beetle pushing its ball along a gravel road… It’s also a place that remains refreshingly wild. Rivers wander through riverine vegetation, where leopards hide in ancient trees. In…

GRATEFUL FOR RAIN @candicebothawildlifeandnaturep Candice Botha is a project planner at a copper mine in Phalaborwa. The Phalaborwa gate is about 2 km from her house and she often visits the park after work. How did you get the shot? I took this photo near Shingwedzi, on the S101 loop off the H1-6. It was an overcast, drizzly day and difficult to take photos. I threw a towel over my camera to protect it. It looks as if the lion is closing his eyes because he’s grateful for the rain. Gear: Canon EOS 70D, Tamron 150 – 600 mm lens, shutter speed 1/1000 second, aperture f7.1 Favourite camp? Tamboti is centrally located and the safari tents ensure a true bush experience. I also like Shingwedzi in the north – the…

Skukuza is a hive of activity, with gameviewing vehicles and khaki-clad tourists all around. There are animals galore, too. The perennial Sabie River is the most reliable source of water in the south of the park and the dense riverine vegetation along its banks, plus the predominant woodland and thorn thickets around the camp make for perfect game-viewing conditions. In winter, visitors often see lions, leopards, wild dogs, hyenas… and lots of awestruck foreigners. The camp itself is well maintained and well designed, with most of the units arranged at the ends of cul-desacs. There’s also a day visitors’ area with a swimming pool a few kilometres from the main camp (R20 per adult; R10 per child). There are some quiet spaces in the Skukuza area. Relax next to the…

Olifants is like a fortified town on a hill high above the banks of the Olifants River. The vegetation around camp – part of the Olifants rugged veld eco zone – is dense and shrubby, with lots of knobthorn, bushwillow and purple-pod clusterleaf trees. In summer it’s difficult to spot game and it’s best to stick to the riverbanks. Or just stay in camp with your binoculars. Olifants rest camp is all about the views: You’re at eye-level with martial eagles and bateleurs riding the thermals, and down below on the sandy banks of the Olifants River you can watch hippos lolling, elephants splashing and antelope coming down to drink. Bungalows 1 – 6 are some of the most popular units in the Kruger Park, with expansive views of a…

Punda Maria is the gateway to Pafuri, one of the most scenic parts of the Kruger. Although there aren’t as many animals as there are in the south of the park, there are hundreds of old trees, an abundance of birds and that unmistakeable deep-in-Africa feeling. A quick geology lesson for context: Unlike the rest of the park, which is on granite or basalt plains, the Punda Maria area is mainly sandveld – and it’s in the tropics. This combination makes for dramatic landscapes and diverse vegetation that attracts birds which aren’t found in the rest of the park, like black-throated wattle-eye, tropical boubou and grey-headed parrot. Punda Maria also earns an extra star for having a hide in the campsite. During the dry months you can see elephant, buffalo…

We bought our first caravan in 1988 when we lived in Middelburg in Mpumalanga. The first camp we visited was Berg-en-Dal. We have a photo of our youngest son, Willem, sitting on a braai as a three-year-old. He’s 31 now! (See photo opposite.) Ever since then, our caravan has been ready for a weekend at Berg-en-Dal. I [Lourens] grew up in Nelspruit. Three of my uncles worked at Skukuza. My father was a livestock inspector, working in the area between the Paul Kruger and Crocodile Bridge gates. He drove a Land Rover and I would join him on trips from Standard 8, when he inspected the border fence. I drove! It was during those trips that I fell in love with the Bushveld and the Kruger Park. We live in…

PACK A PICNIC Having breakfast at one of the picnic sites is a Kruger tradition. The picnic sites have bathroom facilities and you can buy a cooldrink (R12) and hire a gas skottel (R25). Some of the picnic sites like Afsaal, Tshokwane, N’wanetsi, Mooiplaas and Pafuri also have braai facilities (bring your own firewood and braai grid). Afsaal, Nkuhlu and Tshokwane have shops that sell curios, coffee and takeaways. WHERE DID THE MAP GO? The Golden Triangle, Nkumbe and Tshokwane routes (see Lower Sabie and Skukuza) continue on the Central 1 map (page 61).…

Mopani rest camp, named after the surrounding mopane veld, is high on the banks of Pioneer Dam and filled, unsurprisingly, with mopane trees. There are about 100 units hidden in the mopane forest and each is private, which makes the camp feel much smaller than it is. Mopani is one of the more recent additions to the Kruger rest camps. It was completed in 1991 and it has more of a lodge feel than the other camps: There’s a bush bar, a restaurant, and a conference centre, and it’s a popular wedding venue. At one stage it was one of the biggest thatched-roof constructions in the country! You won’t necessarily see the Big Five in the surrounding veld, but there’s more to do than count mopane trees. The Tsendze River…

BACKPACK TRAIL The wildest way to see the Kruger With its tar roads and crowded campsites, you can’t be blamed for thinking that the Kruger Park is a little tame. For a true Kruger wilderness experience, you have to go back to basics… and live out of a backpack. The Lonely Bull Backpack Trail takes you through a wilderness area near Mopani rest camp, far away from roads and the rest of civilization. That’s the whole point of the trail – to completely immerse yourself in nature. The guides on the trail teach you how to become one with your environment. They know all the best camping spots that are dense enough to escape the sun’s punishment, yet open enough not to surprise a buffalo bull when nature calls you…

My father, also Pieter du Plessis, worked in the Kruger Park for 34 years. My two brothers, my sister and I were born here and grew up in the Skukuza staff village. My sister Ionia works for the park, in Skukuza. My daughter was also born in the park – or in the Nelspruit hospital to be precise. Growing up in the Kruger was different: There was no cinema or shops here – we invented our own games. If you visited a friend, you had to be back home before sunset. But children are fearless… it was a wonderful, carefree childhood. The primary school at Skukuza started at 7 am. We walked barefoot to school. In summer it was so hot we had to run from one spot of shade…

Crocodile Bridge is the camp where things happen. It’s next to one of the busiest gates in the park (in peak season up to 1 100 visitors per day enter the park here) and it’s only 12 km from Komatipoort. The game drives and guided hikes are often fully booked in advance because they’re also popular with guests from lodges outside the park. Yet the camp has a relaxed atmosphere. Children run through the sprinklers on the lawn and in the afternoon people read their books under the trees. Vervet monkeys watch you come and go, warthogs graze on the grass at dusk, bushbuck drink water from bowls in the garden and monitor lizards hide under the tent platforms. Bushbabies like to nest in the corner posts of the camp…

Lower Sabie is one of the Kruger’s most popular rest camps and it’s fully booked almost yearround. The main reason for this is because it’s located in a prime game-viewing area, surrounded by savannah grassland, woodlands and thorn thickets, with a river nearby. The variety of vegetation attracts browsers, grazers and predators, with tourists hot on their heels. The H4-1 between Lower Sabie and Skukuza is one of the most popular roads in the park and forms part of the so-called “Golden Triangle”, with the Tshokwane picnic site as the third point. This route is considered the best to drive if you only have one day in the park and you desperately want to see the Big Five. The Mugg & Bean at Lower Sabie has a great view of…

Orpen might be close to a gate, but don’t expect a truck-stop experience. It’s one of the Kruger’s smaller rest camps, where most days feel like a Sunday afternoon. All of the Kruger’s camps are good, but some excel in every department: vibe, scenery and abundance of animals. Orpen is one of those special camps. It’s actually an amalgamation of three camps: the main rest camp with a swimming pool, Tamboti tented camp and the Maroela campsite about 2 km away. All three are the chilled-out bushveld equivalent of a Buddhist temple. The camps are in an area of sweetveld close to the Timbavati River. Game is guaranteed along the H7, where zebra, elephant, wildebeest and warthog graze right next to the road, often just outside the camp gate. You’ll…