World South Africa Kruger National Park

Wes & Sally "On the Road" Exploring South Africa

Kruger National Park Mar 20, 2008

Swaziland to Kruger National Park - March 20

The evolving Swaziland economy was obvious in our scenic drive out of the country. The border crossing was easy.

We arrived at the Kruger park gate just after noon. We checked into our park for the night, Berg-en-dal, picked a site, had lunch and were off on our self drive Safari by 2 pm. We had several sightings of Elephant, Rhino, and a very lucky sighting of the most elusive of the Big 5, the Lepord. We saw several cars parked on a bridge and stopped to look. We caught a glimpse of spots in the tall grass. Watching an opening in the grass ahead we got several good photos when the Leopard went through. A great start for our Kruger visit.

The Kruger big game population is impressive:

Elephant 12,500

Buffalo 31,000

Giraffe 6,700

Impala 101,000 (varies each morning after the cats hunt)

White Rhino 6,900

Zebra 21,000

Lion 2,000

Leopard 1,000

So you would expect to see lots of them, and you do. But, Kruger is a very large park. It's over 400 km North to South and is about 20,000 square km – larger than 5 of our states and the size of Massachusetts. It’s more than twice the size of Yellowstone. Two tarred roads run north/south thru the park we toured, with numerous gravel and dirt roads interconnecting or forming loops. We only toured about 150 square km of the total 20,000. You can drive for 30-40 km and see only one or two large animals. Lots of rain this year, so the grass along the road is about 6 foot high – beyond that 3-4. Some areas have thick brush right up to the road edge so any animals spotted have to be in the 1st 10 meters. In those areas sightings are mostly road crossing events so it’s the luck of timing – our Leopard for example; a minute earlier, or later and we would have missed it. Despite the small fraction of the park we toured, we saw so many animals we had to start skipping stopping for photos of warthogs, impala, and Zebra.

There are a dozen “Rest Camps” like Berg-en-dal within the park. These are full service areas surrounded by electrified fences. You must be inside one of those camps by 6:30 pm if you are inside the park, unless you are on a guided night safari.