Our long awaited Safari will soon be starting. I shall blog our planning documents as well as our daily activities. Safari doesn’t have to be an expensive activity with top of the range hotels/lodges and racing from one animal sighting to the next….for a true authentic “Bush Experience” done in your own time at your own pace on a budget you are comfortable with. Keep an eye on our site and we will guide you through both the process and our experiences.
Just a little update so our faithful followers don’t think that we’ve forgotten them….
John and I tend not to travel very much over the British summer months..Why? You may well ask…Well! It’s when everyone else travels and we tend to have visitors at that time of year…..it is also our holiday planning time as well as our book writing time…..some of you may know that John has had 26 books published by Amberley Publishing Company. We have had our first jointly written book published and we are working on another for which we are contracted to deliver at the beginning of 2025. John, as usual, has more contracts spread out over the next few years. So the British Summertime tends to be a busy time for us.
What’s on the cards for 2J’s World of Adventure…..
We are about to spend a week in The New Forest with my 92 year old Dad. We hire a house in Lymington for a week…. I will blog some of the week so it can give ideas of what to do and where to go in that area of ‘Our green and pleasant land’. We use a company called New Forest Cottages to rent a suitable house. We have used them for several years and can thoroughly recommend them as a highly reputable company.
In November we will be off cruising in the Caribbean for 21 days in celebration of our 10th Wedding Anniversary…an area of the world we both love. We will again blog our daily activities, although I suspect much will be sea and sand !!!
The planning for 2025 has started. We had been looking to Safari in Namibia as well as South Africa. However, Namibia seems to have become increasingly expensive and trying to book accommodation within Etosha National Park has proved a frustrating and unenjoyable experience. So, I have ditched it for next year and we will instead stay in a South Africa, spending a month in Pilanesberg and Kruger National Park.
We are also investigating and planing two other adventures….. A trip around Spain, Portugal and Morocco and also a trip to Uzbekistan-the silk route. We are looking to do both of these with tour companies. ……more on this soon as I am trying to secure good prices for both of these trips so that if you decide you fancy one or the other of them you should be-able to get a really good deal. One of the companies starts the tours in the country of the tour, which means our readers across the world will be able to access the same price regardless of their country of origin …you would then be able to book your own flights, direct or indirect depending on what you want to add on, do and of course your budget.
Well that’s all for now….watch out for our New Forest blog and of course the occasional ‘Been there got the t-shirt’ blog.
Many thanks to those of you who have purchased our framed prints. We have been delighted with your highly complimentary responses and we are so pleased that they have all arrived safely and you are enjoying them on the walls of your homes….
Thanks again for your continued following and interest in our travel adventures.
Let’s start with a contradiction!
Leopards are relatively common in South Africa, and in Kruger National Park in particular. Yet they are rarely seen, so why is that? Well, the leopard is a secretive animal and, unlike the lion, does not live in groups, but is usually solitary. The male and female come together to mate, and then go their separate ways. On top of that, the leopard has one of the best camourflages in the entire animal kingdom.
The leopard is the second biggest African cat, behind the lion, and, generally, kills to feed just for itself rather than a whole pride. It is a silent stalker with most species of antelope its favourite prey.
Following a successful kill, it is common for the leopard to drag its prey up a tree trunk in order to feed amongst its branches. The leopard is a powerful creature often hauling more than its body weight in this way.
It is equally at home to stalk under the cover of darkness and is prone to stalk a sleeping troop of baboons in the hope of isolating one and carrying it off as its prey.
Leopards are creatures of habit and can often be seen in dry river beds silently approaching their prey whilst they are drinking in the limited pockets of water.
They can also take you by surprise by climbing a tree to get a better view of where to find their next meal.
Although found through much of Southern Africa, most of our sightings have been within Kruger National Park in the northeast of South Africa. We have been privileged to have spent enough time in the park for our patience to be rewarded with many magnificent leopard sightings. Although occasionally we’ve had a fleeting view of the white underside of their tail as they retreat into the undergrowth and become invisible.
Each such sighting Is accompanied by an ‘adrenaline rush’ which has to be experienced as it’s almost impossible to put into words. For me, this beautiful but elusive creature is the crown jewel, the ‘must see’ on safari in Africa.
Sometimes it’s nice to get off a night flight and rest…we have done this a few times. We’ve also booked into an airport hotel overnight before flying on to Namibia or Botswana the next day. The last twice we’ve stayed at The Holiday Inn Johannesburg Airport – it’s about £50 a night for a double for two. …….if you walk out of the airport past the car hire block you come to the complimentary bus area, the bus to the Holiday Inn goes every 30 minutes from here. It’s only about 10/15 minutes to the hotel. There is a bar, snack bar and restaurant…..you can pay a small amount extra to book into your room early….last year we did this, had a rest and then met a friend in the bar for toasted sandwich lunch..
If we don’t stay at the airport we pick up the car hire and head off towards Kruger. There are several, place’s to stop en route to Kruger. I don’t recommend driving in the dark in South Africa. We have often headed towards Witbank – now known as Emalahleni – if we decide to stop there we stay at what was The Protea hotel but is now A New Hotel. It is a good hotel with nice rooms safe parking and a very pleasant restaurant. A double room costs about £62.00 for 2.
If you manage to land In Johannesburg early enough you might fancy going further….some people do drive straight to Kruger….but I am the only driver and I don’t sleep well on planes ..so we prefer to break our journey. Further on approximately 20km east of Water Boven tunnel is a very nice game reserve – SARAGOSSA GAME RESERVE. It is situated on the banks of the Elands river in the scenic Elands Valley. You turn off the N4, cross the railway line and phone them from the gate…they then escort you to farm buildings where you leave your vehicle and transfers to the lodge via a safari jeep. This luxurious nature and wildlife retreat covers a variety of ecosystems, from riverine forest to savannah and bushveld. The reserve has an air of calmness and serenity, and is the ideal location to begin or conclude your journey to or from Kruger. The reserve has a variety of elegant safari accommodation, offering guests the highest levels of comfort and cuisine. Giraffe, hippo, zebra, blue wildebeest and eland are just a few of the many species that roam freely throughout the 1400ha wildlife reserve.
it’s a truly lovely place…we stayed 2 nights, having a wonderful early morning and evening game drive. We finished the game drive at the lake/dam. A wonderful wedding venue is on the banks. We had a bar-b-que with everything set out on the banks… The hippos were playing and a young hippo was being protected by its mum. It started to rain and we adjourned to the inside venue which was also gorgeous.
Prices are on application the last price I had for it was about £200 per night for 2 inclusive of dinner, bed & breakfast and game drive…. It’s REALLY worth the money, wonderful experience…really relaxing.
On arriving in Malalane we have often stay outside the Kruger National Park and go in daily. We’ve stayed at Prestana Kruger Lodge… a lovely setting on The Crocodile River. It is just 700 metres from the gate into Kruger. The hotel and lodges are set in 22 hectares of unspoilt scrub land…. It has a lovely deck and restaurant and the deluxe rooms over look the river. It costs about £100 for a double room bed and breakfast for two.
If this seems a little expensive we have also stayed at The River House Lodge in Malalane. It also overlooks the river, has a lovely swimming pool and a really quirky bar…it’s like a living museum….
The rates are for two people dinner, bed and breakfast approx £87 per night….the evening menu is a set meal as is the breakfast…but it’s very nice indeed…….the owner and the managers are good fun and good company….the rooms are spacious and comfortable…this is a really good price and it only takes 10 minutes to drive into the park.
There are also a few more hotels we’ve stayed at just outside the Malalane gate but these two are our favourites…..if you want a greater choice just email us on 2jsworldofadventure@gmail.com or go on the contact page.
Moving up the park, when we get to Satara we often like to go out of the park for a few days. The accommodation in Kruger is quite basic and often not in top condition….let’s just call it rustic..
So occasionally we feel we need “time-out”. Going out of the Orpen Gate puts you in prime wildlife area…there are numerous private game reserves, lodges, farms etc….they range from top of the range to more reasonable. Not far from Orpen on the road from the gate, is Timbavati Safari Lodge. It is located in Mbabat, and offers accommodations in thatched chalets with colorful traditional African design like the huts of the Ndebele Tribe. It is only a 24-minutes’ drive from the Orpen gate of Kruger. The lodge has a swimming pool and a bar. Each chalet is fitted with a ceiling fan and mosquito netting over each bed and the windows, a private bathroom with a shower. There is an on-site restaurant. While we were there we had two evenings with a BBQ in the evening. At the time of visiting they were doing evening Safari into Timbavati Game reserve..a 5* reserve at a price we could only dream of affording…..I had asked to book one of these evening safaris when I booked the accommodation….but I was told it wasn’t necessary…ummmm!!! When we arrived we asked to go on the Safari on one of our two nights, but alas they were fully booked..I was far from amused and felt rather cheated as we could have stayed in a dozen or so other places…but we always try to make the most of our adventures…so we made other plans. The lodge accommodation is slightly less basic than in Kruger, in that most things work…but you do need to be aware that it doesn’t have air conditioning – Kruger accommodation does although it doesn’t always work. We did have very nice breakfasts and the BBQ’s were lovely. It costs about £100 a night dinner bed and breakfast for 2 people.
From anywhere in this area there are two important places which are well worth a visit. Moholoholo Wildlife Rehabilitation Centre is situated at the base of the majestic North Eastern Lowveld Drakensberg mountain range in the Limpopo Province of South Africa, Moholoholo Means “The Very Great One”, they do a great deal of good work assisting wildlife which has been trapped, caught in wires, attacked for straying into human inhabited areas.
It is a superb place where rare species can be seen close up…one has to remember that if the centre hadn’t intervened these animals would not have lived. Some can be released back into the wild some have to stay as permanent residents.
At the crossroads from the Kruger Road if you turn right ( instead of straight on for Moholoholo) you head towards Hoedspruit. You soon come across the Hoedspruit Endangered Species Centre……this is a firm favourite of ours and we visit most years. I first went when it first opened and have been a very firm supporter of its work ever since. It opened in 1990 as the Hoedspruit Cheetah Project, HESC has played an important role in the conservation of specific endangered species, particularly cheetahs and rhinos. The centre specialises on the survival of these endangered species through breeding and ensuring the diversity of the bloodlines of cheetahs. They also rehabilitate rhinos that have become victims of poaching, whilst creating awareness among the general public, locally and internationally, about the importance of wildlife conservation. The work they do is paramount in saving these endangered species. They also have other endangered species, a leopard who was caught in a snare and a pack of wild dogs. The later are all individual dogs which had been either poisoned (to keep them away from domestic livestock) or snared/trapped, they have been rescued and formed a pack.
One of the very special resident species at the centre is the beautiful King Cheetah…they aren’t released back into the wild. Their rarity makes them incredibly valuable and they just wouldn’t survive the poachers in the wild. The King Cheetah doesn’t have spots but elongated shapes.
If you feel a bit like having some luxury accommodation, there are numerous private reserves around the Hoedspruit area…we’ve tried several a favourite of ours was Tintshaba Lodge but during our last visit it became evident that it was now a hunting lodge and we are into Eco tourism…you can however have a microlight trip from here. We’ve also tried Hongonyi which has now been incorporated into one of the mega expensive lodges. Another is Mohlabetsi which is situated in the vast Balule Private Game Reserve, which is part of the Greater Kruger National Park. Its name means place of sweet water…it’s a lovely place mid price range for stays at Private Game reserves. One of our favourites which is just about affordable for us is Masodini which means “Place in the Bush” in South Sotho. The lodge is in Olifants West/Balule. It’s a beautiful Lodge surrounded by large trees, shrubs and African date palms, providing shade and excellent bird viewing. There are Five separate tastefully furnished Chalets which provide privacy, peace and quiet. Each Chalet has tea and coffee facilities, fans, mosquito nets and air conditioning. The owner gives fantastic game drives, they seem to know each individual creature on their property. It’s a great place. The price for dinner, bed and breakfast and game drives is around £350 per night for two people.
We hope this has given you a few extra ideas as to what to see and do around the periphery of Kruger National Park…if you are looking for some cultural activities as well as being at one with nature we can also point you in the right direction. Feel free to contact us as we know this area like the back of our hand.
I am going to start this blog by stating how affordable Safari is in South Africa…Kruger National Park allows for some of the finest wildlife and bird watching in the world…….You can book it yourself, I call it DIY Safari….but if you don’t want to Rosie Price at DialaFlight. (44+161-841-8179 or email rosie.price@dialaflight.co.uk) will book it for you.
You probably think I am mad …..but you’ll see from these quick figures that I am not it really is a very reasonable holiday….PRICES FOR 2 PEOPLE= Airfares with Virgin Atlantic are £1571 ( BA is cheaper but we prefer virgin) Hire car for 17 nights with Avis is £1084 ( yes you can get a lot cheaper but this is for a high clearance vehicle good for dirt roads and seeing over tall grass…we usually have a Toyota Urban Cruiser, no need for a 4×4, this actually was the cost of a new Toyota Cross Corolla, about the height of a Rave but more comfortable) 12 nights accomodation in Kruger National Park is £890 ( we book 2 bedded with en-suite, some were perimeter rondavels throughout the park) We also stayed 5 nights with friend in Johanesberg, but if you stayed somewhere like The City Lodge Morningside near Santon ( like a Premier Inn) it would cost £225. However you probably would only need two nights one when you fly in and one before you fly out so you could save three days car-hire and accommodation….. The total cost of this is £3770 ….. Not bad for a 2 week holiday in one of the top wildlife destinations in the world…….the only extra cost is the daily concession in Kruger National Park…I am uncertain of this price because if you’re in the Park longer than 10 nights it pays to buy an international Wild Card which we do …it last a year and we work it so we get 2 years holidays out of the one card ( we go September/October one year and May/June the next year) Yes you also have fuel and food to buy….in Kruger you can self cater…we do this for breakfast and lunch but we eat in the Camps restaurant for our evening meal.
OK!!!!!!! Having spent nearly 3 weeks in Botswana we flew into ORTambo airport Johannesburg, collected the hire car from Avis and drove to our friends house. We stopped two days, catching up with each other’s news..we keep a cool box and some pillows at our friends ( because I am a very fussy sleeper and love a nice goose down pillow!!!)
We then set off to Kruger. Unlike tour companies we don’t go into the park at the Paul Kruger Gate, neither do we ever stay at Skakuza, it’s far too commercial for our liking…..so we stay on the N4 – a good toll road ( tolls are cheap, but you do need Rands for them as they don’t take foreign credit cards – petrol filling stations do).
We go through Nelspruit 210 miles/330Km east of Johannesburg, ( Nelspruit is now known as Mbombela) and on to Malalane. We enter Kruger at the Malalane Gate (don’t forget to lock your car when you park up to book in at the gate) Our first stop was 2 nights at Berg-en-Dal in a perimeter chalet.
We arrive in time to take a Sunset Drive on a Parks vehicle…we love these, because although it’s great to self drive, the Sunset and Night drives means you are out in the Park after 6pm when the gates shut and everyone else has to be in camp….only Parks vehicles are allowed in the park between sunset and sun rise..so it’s very quiet and you get to see the nocturnal animals…We were lucky on this drive…Sometimes “Mother Nature” just wants you to see it all……wow, wow, wow…. Our it’s sighting before we even got to the main road….
We turned onto the dirt road along the river towards Crocodile Bridge…..there dancing in the road and chasing around the bushes was a pack of Wild dog sometimes called The Painted Dog…..…..these are very rare and nearly extinct …
After watching them a while they disappeared into the bush and we proceeded along the track….we were amazed when our guide shone her torch on a chameleon…what spotting …
We were still buzzing from the spots when our guide put the spot lights to the left and there was a heavily pregnant leopard….we tracked her slowly, as she was walking parallel to the road, for about a kilometre before she turned away from the road and disappeared into the bush.
Considering ourselves extremely fortunate we turned around and headed back..passing an elephant and a hippo at the side of the road …….
Then just when you think it’s all over for the evening we see a pride of lions, well that’s the big 5 seen on our first evening !!!
The start of our Kruger adventure was off to a bang!! We continued up the Park to Lower Sabi for one night. Our self drive game viewing was as usual productive. The tar road towards Skakuza was closed due to the heavy rain washing the bridge away…this however didn’t prevent the resident leopard from strutting it’s stuff in its normal area….
Day 4 in Kruger saw us heading up North. We don’t usually go past Satara but it had been full so we went up to Olifants. We don’t get as excited in the North of the Park…it’s very dry and the wildlife aren’t as prolific as in the central and southern areas of the Park. We saw a few elephants the occasional zebra, wildebeest, impala and steenbok…..but wildlife was few and far between.
Thankfully we had been able to get into Satara for the next 4 nights……we enjoy this area…lots of lions, “Casper”, the famous white lion, it’s an area full of big herds of buffaloes and where there are buffalo there are cats !!! We had 4 days of great game viewing and a sunset drive…our cameras clicked happily away….
The area really does teem with lions and their associated acquaintances…..
The big herds of buffalo really do bring the predators out….
We didn’t just see lions during the da, but we saw loads at dusk and even ‘bonking’ lions in the road !!!!!!
I seem to have made it sound as if we saw nothing but lions….that’s really not the case we saw elephant herds and lads of the usual impala, zebra, wildebeest, kudu, the odd nyala, steenbok, klipspringer, crocodile and numerous bird species…to name but a few.
After 4 wonderful days driving ourselves around the Satara region we headed back down to the southern end of the Park for a 2 night stay at Pretorioskop. Once again we got there in time to take the Sundowner Parks drive ( these drives are very reasonably priced and we often take them so I can have a rest from driving and can really relax with a game drive) Once again we were so lucky…I’ll let the pictures speak for themselves …
There were 30 lions in this pride, which had been feeding off a buffalo…this really is a once in a life time sight. After 2 nights at Pretorioskop we took the long dirt road across to Berg-en-Dal for our final 2 nights in Kruger……On the way across we were surprised when a cheetah walked out in front of us and proceeded to walk down the road in front of us. We were even more surprised when about 5 minutes later a second cheetah joined the first …then we were flabbergasted when a third wandered into the road. We spent about 20 minutes following them along the road. Unfortunately another car then came up behind us and with their sudden arrivals the cheetahs all disappeared out of sight into the bush.
After 2 nights at Berg-en-Dal and some more great wildlife viewing we headed back to Johannesburg. We spent a night in The City Lodge so we could see some very close friends and another night at our friends house before driving to the airport, returning the car and boarding the plane back home……We had, had an amazing time in South Africa and Botswana…6 weeks of superb Wildlife Viewing …at one with Mother Nature.
2 J's World of Adventure 