A "Wild" Day

10th Sept, Kruger Park, South Africa


5:00 am Difficult wake up. South African wine is very good but treacherous…

5:30 am After a quick full English breakfast and coffee, we hit the road in the light of dawn. Now I have to tell you driving in Sth Africa is interesting. People cross the highway on foot and expect you to push into the emergency lane so that they can overtake you on a small road with cars coming from the opposite direction. Needless to say, I was glad it wasn’t too early and I was fully alert and awake…

A little bit before Numbi Gate (our point of entry into Kruger) one of the big double length buses that takes locals to work or school in the morning literally spun out of control right in front of us. Hitting a pothole, one of the back wheels flipped off the bus, not just the tire but the whole wheel! We managed to avoid the bus and I must say the guy driving it did a good job at staying out of the way…

6:30 am We arrive at the gate and make a pit stop, quickly fill in the forms, and get going.

The landscape itself is amazing, beautiful untouched nature, and after just 2 minutes in the Park we meet a White Rhino family walking along the road and stop to observe for a few minutes before they quietly make an exit into the high grass. The Mum kept an eye on us the whole time.

10:30 am After meeting a giraffe and a group of spotted hyenas sunbathing, we made our way down to the waterhole of Renosterpan and sat in the car while sipping our coffee. Out of nowhere comes a family of elephants who quickly made their way to the water hole and started gulping away. As soon as they finished, they moved closer to us and began grazing around the car. Now it’s hard to tell when an elephant is happy or not when you’re not an expert, but all of a sudden they got a little too close. The Mum again stopped in front of the car and stared at us for a long time. We put our windows up and smiled at her!

We also met Giraffes, Steenboks, Nyalas, a couple of Klipspringers, a troop of Baboons, a group of Warthogs - again the Mum who stared at us whilst standing between the car and her hogglets; she did not look nearly as friendly as Pumba – Zebras, Waterbucks, and lots of Impalas.

5:30 pm We exit the park without having met the king of the jungle but with so many cool encounters we couldn’t complain.

6:00 pm Night falls. The drive back becomes very…interesting as we are on unlit hilly roads with guys looking to overtake us at high speed, other drivers with the full lights on coming the other way and pedestrians crossing the road in the dark!

6:30 pm Home! As we enjoy a fresh South African night and Emily’s delicious homemade vegetable pizza, I realize that I learned a couple things today: Nature IS bigger than you (with all that this entails) and Mothers do not get enough credit as they are always there for their kids, watching their back (The White Rhino calf always walks in front of his mother).

So we want to thank our mums for looking out for us and although they do not have the muscle power of the Rhino Mother, they have always looked out for us and we probably haven’t been thankful enough for that!

Will