Kruger National Park

Wednesday, March 19, 2014  - leave Swaziland -  drive to Kruger National Park (Berg-En-Dal)

When we left Swaziland, we spent 3 nights in Kruger National Park. We took two guided safaris in the open air jeeps. One was at 4:30 am thru sunrise and one at 4:30 pm into the pitch black darkness.  We took 5 self-drives where we could just wander the roads as long as we wanted between 6 am and 6 pm.  It was amazing to see so many animals in the vast wilderness. 

Driving in the park is very interesting you never know what will be in the road.  The highest speed limit in the park is 30 mph for good reason.  Kruger Nat Park was established in 1898 and is 1,948,528 hectares in size. We were in a very small portion of the park.  It is home to an impressive # of species: 147 mammals, 336 trees, 507 birds, 49 fish, 34 amphibians, and 114 reptiles.

The most exciting event for us was on a night drive when first a hyena stood in the road staring at us before running into the bush and immediately afterwards 6 lions came prowling by us on the road apparently on the prowl.  It was great but a little scary.

A partial list of what we saw includes: Elephants, Lions, Giraffes, water buffalo, porcupine, chameleons, spotted hyena,wild dogs, Impala, Wildebeest, leopard tortoise, Elephant weaver nests, rhino serous, monkeys, Elan and many other kinds of antelope.  I am going to just try to follow this with some interesting pictures.  There are not enough words to describe all we saw.