We left on Tuesday and arrived Thursday. After thirty-six hours of travel we arrived in Johannesburg to pick up our truck/house and drive the four hours to the Kruger. Kruger National Park is a 7,500 square mile game reserve on the border of South Africa, Mozambique and Zimbabwe. Our plan was to drive from the southern gates to the northern, camping along the way. We covered 3,000km in the process.

Our truck was an off-road outfitted, manual transmission, right hand drive, diesel beast. Our sleeping accommodations were a roof mounted tent with ladder access. Neither of us have ever slept better. Our food, supplies, and equipment stored neatly in the back. It even included a refrigerator!

On the way we swung by an elephant sanctuary for some hands-on interaction before heading into the wild park.

The roads outside the park were generally paved and well maintained, but inside they varied from tarmac to little more than trails.

Driving inside the park could be wild, with close animals encounters and the occasional traffic jam. We had multiple incidents of elephants and water buffalo charging our car!

Morning Coffee

Research


Traffic

Tall traffic


REVERSEREVERSE

Camping could also get a bit wild, with appearances by hungry honey badgers, hyena, baboons, monkeys and birds. The typical campsite was within a (mildly) fenced campground. Cooking was primarily over charcoal.

Typical campsite, with our hammocks

Trustworthy fence

Mystery meat

Don’t eat near aggressive monkeys!

One night we slept in a remote hide overlooking a watering hole. It had no power or water and a fence made of sticks. We were the only people for about fifteen miles. We went to sleep to the sounds of an elephant splashing in the water thirty feet away. We awoke at midnight to the sounds of an adult male lion loudly grunting/growling to announce his territory. He was directly outside our house made of sticks and it continued for two hours.

Lionproof

In addition to all the animals, the park itself was beautiful.

After (sadly!) leaving the park, we spent several days in the mountains between Johannesburg and the Kruger hiking and relaxing before heading toCape Town.

We found a porcupine quill, but no porcupine