We regularly Safari in South Africa…our knowledge of where to go and where to stay is extensive and our experience spans nearly 40 years…in that time we’ve seen a lot of changes. I was just 24 years old when I first visited Kruger National Park and I’ve clocked up an accumulative time of over 3.5 years in the park…YES! I love it and it’s wildlife. John joined my love for Kruger after first visiting 11 years ago. This is what he wrote at that time about his initial introduction to the park…..
The brown route is the way tour companies enter, we always take the red route.
Impressions from a first safari
It’s 04.45 when we are roused from our semi conscious state. It’s the ‘early morning’ alarm sounding in our roundavel, and its pitch black and there’s a nip in the air. We are at Berg-en-Dal camp Kruger National Park.
But, let’s rewind 24 hours or so. My wife, Jenny, and I had left London’s Heathrow Airport the night before on an overnight South African Airways flight to OS Tambo International Airport in Johannesburg. Picking up our Toyota Fortuner we had headed north eastwards away from the conurbation of Jo’burg and Pretoria picking up South Africa’s N4 motorway to our destination.
Several hours later, we had entered the small town of Malalane which sits at the southern end of what is to be our home for the next two weeks, Kruger National Park.
So, we are in the northeastern corner of South Africa in what is South Africa’s oldest national park, established way back in 1926. With the Zimbabwe border to the north and Mozambique to the east, a vast area of 7,500 square miles of SA is designated by UNESCO as part of the Kruger to Canyons Biosphere. If that all sounds a bit highbrow, then don’t be put off because that is not what Kruger is about to us. It is simply our heaven on earth.
With vast swathes of Africa’s natural habitat lost to man’s intervention, this is an area where human beings are privileged to enter a land that the wildlife can call their home. Kruger stretches around 220 miles from north to south, and approximately 40 miles from west to east (and the Mozambique border). To the south and west, nine entry gates control access to the camps dotted across the park, which covers an area roughly the size of Wales.
With a combination of tar and dirt (gravel) roads and a global speed restriction of 40 kph, the national park is ideal for safari lovers like us to self-drive. Yes, there is a place for the park controlled safari drives, too. With the rest camp gates closed from sunset to sunrise, the SAN Parks’ organised game drives, particularly at sunrise and sunset, offer an ‘escape clause’ to witness the wildlife in a nocturnal environment. The additional height offered by the safari vehicles can be an advantage too, particularly when the bush grass is long.
And so, back to 04.45 and a Berg-en-Dal wake up call. A quick refresh of the body and we’re ready to go when the camp gate opens at 0530, we are ahead of sunrise by about half an hour. The feeling of anticipation is intense. What will be the first sighting of the day? An impala? Probably. Hopefully, a night predator returning after a kill. Or lions sleeping on the tar, with the roads deserted overnight of course. The tar retains the heat, offering a treat for these big cats when man has gone.
Lion taking the warmth from the tar road
Around half a dozen vehicles form an orderly queue as the impatient wait for the gate opening continues. After a few minutes, despite it seeming like an eternity, the SAN Parks officer allows our ‘escape- at a shade after 6am. That nip in the air is still evident as we await the heat of the African sun to dramatically change this landscape later in the day. This morning, our first sighting is not to be an impala but a spotted hyena about to end its night’s work, scavenging for food.
We both wonder what other sights the bush has in store for us today……
With John’s love of Safari firmly embedded from his very first moments in Kruger National Park 2J’s continued most years to make what can only be described as their ‘pilgrimage’ to South Africa…people always ask why we don’t get bored with going to the same place and I always answer “The Bush (Mother Nature) only shows you what it wants you to see and that is always different, every hour, every day every year”….and so we continue to Safari with the same excitement we had the first time we went.
From Nata we drove to Kasane, returned the hired vehicle to the airport and got Chobe Safari lodge to pick us up to take us to the hotel. We were here for 8 nights in our favourite Kasane accommodation……Chobe Safari lodge. Ive been going there for the past 35 years, both my parents and my son have had the pleasure of enjoying it. Over the past 11 years it has been my husbands favourite place to holiday.
We take their safaris which are reasonably priced at US$45 per person for 3 hours. This year we arranged 7 half day(6 hours) safaris from 12-6pm. Dorkus, head of activities, kindly arranged it for us ….by booking all 7 days it was agreed with “Bush Trackers”, the Safari company the lodge commissions, that we would just pay for the 2 of us and we didn’t have to pay for a 3rd or 4th person. Dorkus (who always sorts our problems out for us, whether they are activity or hotel related, I secretly call her the General Manager, as she really provides excellent customer service far better than the Accomodation/bookings manager does !!) also arranged for us to have the same driver each day…his name was ‘Same Arron’, a young 24 year old driver and guide …..he was brilliant. He gave us the best Safari adventure we’ve ever had, which is the highest praise we can give. I never drive in Chobe as it takes a level of skill I’ve never had….the last time I drove in Chobe was some years ago, I got stuck in the soft sand and after several hours waiting for another vehicle to come by( no cell phone signal) they tried to help us and ended up having to radio for help…it took 3 vehicles to get us out, a lot of digging, use of metal planks and jacks…..I swore I’d never drive it again…and I haven’t…
That evening we decided to take the sundowner game viewing cruise. We do like this cruise and always do at least one when we visit. However, we often find it a bit of a booze cruise which isn’t our style….This time we were fortunate and we set off on a smaller boat watching the big groups go out on the bigger boats. We took to the Chobe River, passing our Safari Room accommodation.
We spent a very pleasant 3 hours, with a good safari guide pointing out the wonderful sights, both on the islands, in the water and on the main river bank.
Of course the most amazing wildlife viewed when on the water are the elephants, who swim out to the islands for the sweeter grass, their trunks acting as snorkels, they can often be seen in Lily pad areas pulling up the sweet roots… it is a sight second to none.
One of the most fabulous sights when you are on a boat on the Chobe River is the sun sets… they are always different and always mesmerising.
Just when you think the day is done… on the river bank another awesome sight…
Over the next 7 days ‘Same’ showed us some wonderful sites, taking us in all sorts of directions across the park, to places we had never seen before. It was exciting, thrilling and the wildlife was magnificent.
Day 16
On Johns birthday he received flowers in our room and a card from the hotel they were trying hard to make amends for a mix up with our room when we booked in ….they had allocated us a river view room which had been totally unsuitable – you had to stand on the dressing table chair to reach the aircon unit to adjust the temperature, there was no remote control, the toilet was, what we in the UK install in schools for small young children..not good for a 6ft2, 70 year old man..these rooms were being renovated…only the one we were given was still awaiting renovation….I had complained and the Accommodation/bookings Manager had been far from helpful (very unusual for this hotel, it is the first time we’d come across this in all the years we had been visiting). I spoke to the customer services assistant who tried her very best but was obviously intimidated by the Accomodation/ bookings Manager…..we’d ended up sitting on the sofas near the activities office waiting to be allocated a different room …our wait was 5 hours !!!!!….. Unacceptable by anyones standards…a waste of our holiday time.
Dorkus had seen us there and realising I was upset came to enquire what the problem was. She quickly went away to sort it out and came back telling us the number of a Safari room we would be moved to and she told us it was just being cleaned. 10 minutes later she came to tell us she had arranged for us to get the key from reception and our bags were being transferred as we spoke…we had a lovely room, the same as we have always had…
Dorkus, saved the day and was definitely our hero from then on……why the Accommodations/bookings Manager couldn’t have been more professional and done this 5 hours earlier is unknown…she seemed to be power crazy…..we felt very sorry for the Customer Services advisor…however I digress….Back to Johns birthday, day 16 of our adventure.
The card and flowers were a nice touch. At 12 noon we waited in reception for ‘Same’…he appeared and said he was sorry he would be 10 minutes late…”no worries” we replied…..He arrived 10 minutes later with a parcel which he gave to John and wished him a happy birthday….wow…John opened it and it was a wonderful wooden carving of Africa with the Big 5 carved out..it was fantastic a real generous gift we were both very touched by the gesture and the gift, which now hangs proudly, at home, on our living room door.
We set of on the 6 hour Safari….Same booked in at the main gate then continued to drive the tar road which goes towards Namibia…We’d not been along this road on Safari before…we encounter some elephant, before Same turned off to the right onto a little used track through thick Bush land…
We spotted a Sable antelope at a distance along with a couple of elephant. After some time we turned right again and noticed a solar panel and pump. This evidently is one of very few in Chobe, as the Parks management prefer the animals to naturally migrate to and fro according to where the water is. Not far from here was a small waterhole being fed from the pump. It was teaming with elephant…they were drinking, bathing throwing mud around…taking absolutely no notice of us.. the smell, sounds, sight was amazing, we even got included in a bit of a mud bath!!!
Driving around the back of the elephant we noticed a large breeding herd of Sable Antelope laid down and grazing in the shade of the trees. These are Johns favourite antelope, actually probably his favourite species of wild life. ‘Same’ knew this and also had prior knowledge of where this big herd are often found, he had kept this treat for Johns special day.
We had never seen a breeding herd before and we sat there amongst the elephant watching them and these amazing Sable for well over an hour….what a treat a real special moment, another once in a life time memory made….Thank you so much ‘Same’, you really are an unbelievably kind, considerate, polite young man.
We continued the rest of the days Safari with more great wildlife spots.
Supper back at the lodge afforded us another bouquet of flowers on the table. Our meal ended with a birthday cake being paraded through the restaurant and the kitchen and serving staff serenading John, around our table, with several local songs and a robust version of Happy Birthday whilst beating a drum and dancing…..was John a bit embarrassed? Well! Of course he was but it had to be done…a lovely memory had been created of a very special day.
Day 17 to 21
The rest of our Safaris with ‘Same’ were all eventful and memorable…we saw great prides of lions, herds of buffaloes, both towers and journeys of Giraffe, we got warned off by 2 not so friendly bull elephants, watched swimming, bathing, mud-throwing elephants, saw no-end of wildebeest, zebra, impala and one of my favourite Puku (native to Chobe)… It really is our heaven on earth
Our 8 days flew by and far to quickly, soon, it was time to say a tearful goodbye to Same Arron, Best ever Safari guide/driver, and we had a bear hug from Dorkus, in our opinion Chobe Safari Lodge’s most prized employee. Then it was time to head for the airport with heavy hearts and the hope that we would be back in two years time……the only thing which could prevent us is the cost as it is getting more and more expensive but to date it hasn’t stop us exploring Botswana and it’s wonderful wildlife…you just have to be a bit more organised and cross reference prices so you don’t pay a fortune. Having said that this was a Celebratory Trip and we did once in a life time activities ..so we did spend a fortune…but Botswana can be seen a lot cheaper by doing less and not staying as long…our next trip will be more the norm for us…just a visit to Chobe and hopefully Chobe Safari lodge as long as it hasn’t priced itself out of our reach.
Our Botswana Adventure was over for another year… we flew back to South Africa to continue our Safari by spending time in Kruger National Park…if you would like to continue to follow our adventure you’ll find the blog under South Africa. Thank you to all who have followed this amazing trip, we hope you enjoyed it.
We prepared to leave Maun…..we paid the food, drink and laundry bill at The Safari Lodge Maun…the accommodation had been pre-paid…we were a little aghast at the laundry bill and made a mental note not to do it here again if we ever re-visited. The hotel had been great…we had, had a deluxe double which had a little patio overlooking the almost dried up river bed which was great for people watching and watching cars being washed in the tiny pockets of water which remained…the Botswana people are never short of enterprising ideas to solve environmental problems…
From Maun we drove back towards Kasane, we were stopping for two nights at Nata lodge, which sits on the Sua (Sowa) Pans . We had often thought of doing this, when we used to drive through to Chobe from Mafeking or Johannesburg in South Africa. It had quite a reputation as being a nice place, but we were always in a rush to get to our beloved Chobe.
Nata Lodge is in the same group of hotels as Chobe Safari Lodge, the group is known as “Under one Botswana Sky” …the three hotels which we are familiar with in this group all charge much the same for accommodation and activities.
The drive from Maun to Nata was uneventful, a few herds of elephant drinking out of water pipe access holes, a few herds of zebra on the road side, a stray Jackie strutting his stuff down the middle of the road….just the sort of thing you expect to see on one of the countries main tarred roads!!!
On arriving at Nata Lodge we booked in and went to our room. It was a wooden structure on stilts. Although quite dark inside it was similar in layout to the Chobe Safari lodge rooms- large bed, desk, arm chair, open bathroom area with sink and freestanding bath, separate toilet and separate shower. The only difference was that the shower was outside…which is great when the weather is fine but not so great when it rained cold, dirty/sandy rain. I guess it exfoliates your skin all over your body fairly cheaply and gives your hair a golden sand tint!!!!!!
We rested during the afternoon, rather frustrated that we couldn’t get WiFi in our accommodation neither the hotel,or our own router gave us a signal. We finally went to the bar area where we managed to get an intermittent signal. We had our evening meal in the open restaurant.
It was fairly full of a large tour groups, who seemed to be given preference over us lone travellers…….This continued over the two evenings and mornings we were there…we defiantly felt like second class citizens.. a never again experience, after all we paid more for our meals than tour groups did and we should have been given good attentive service.
Day 12
Today we relaxed, spending our time reorganising the packing, photos, writing blogs and finally going to the bar to upload using the weak internet…John walked the grounds photographing birds and we both became fascinated by a woodpecker in a nearby tree.
At 3.00 pm we climbed aboard a Safari vehicle, with 4 other couples. There were 2 other vehicles full of a big group of German tourists. We were going on to the Sua ( Sowa) pans where there is a resident large flock of Flamingos, along with some pelicans, and the usual wildebeest and zebras who live and transverse the pans.
We were allowed to alight from the vehicles and walk to the edge of the lake. Although the massive flamboyance of flamingos was a distance away it was a truly fabulous sight, a hue of pink. Some were flying in and out, pelicans were closer by observing us.
It was idyllic, or at least it would have been if it hadn’t been for the two other vehicles of very noisy tourists who set up a cocktail bar between the Safari vehicles and loudly proceeded to have copious amounts to drink.
They continued to party for well over an hour, even dancing…we asked our driver if we could please go but he said not until all our group was on the vehicle…so 3 other couples and us waited for one couple to finish their party…we returned to the lodge, passing more wildebeest as the sun went down …..
We were quite disgruntled, as this noisy, boozy crowd was well below the standard of Safari we expect…we were so disappointed.
Our disappointment continued at supper, when we were given a table in a very dark area, the service was so slow we had to keep asking..’can we place our order please’, ‘Excuse me please but where’s our food’, ‘could we see the dessert menu please’, ‘Excuse me, is our dessert coming before breakfast!’ ……there was another couple of independent travellers who also seemed to be invisible…….We returned to our room wondering why we had booked in here…this was defiantly a never again experience…
Botswana and South Africa Safari MAY 5th – JUNE 12th 2023
Date
Day
Place
Address/Reference
Price £
05/05/23
Home
Pick up Kilroy Cars 4.00pm airport transfer
£140
Heathrow 22.30 flight
VS449 Economy Dream Delight including 1 nt B&B Garden Court Joburg, Airlink return flight to Botswana, 1 nt Chobe Safari lodge dbb
£3159.99
06/05/23
Joburg 10.25
Garden Court OR Tambo International Airport 2, Hulley Road Isando 1627 South Africa Free airport/hotel transfers
7/05/23
Or Tambo Joburg to Kasane 11.50
Terminal B 9.50am check in arrive Kasane 1.35pm
Kasane Avis car hire
Pick up car at Avis 14.00 pick up Toyota Urban Add additional insurance. Return 14.00 on 18/05/23
£449.00 BWP 7,362.07
Chobe Safari Lodge
Chobe Safari Lodge Book in Afternoon Safari
£70.00
08/05/23
Gweta Lodge
Gweta Lodge Including B & B & Lunch & buffet Dinner Full Day trip Ntwetwe Pan + Meerrkat Nxai Pan full day trip The trips may have to be paid in US$1000each – cash
£1141 BWP18725.00
09/05/23
Full Day trip Ntwetwe Pan + Meerrkat
£778
10/05/23
Rest Day
11/05/23
Nxai Pan full day trip
£778
12/05/23
Maun Lodge
Bed and Breakfast
£400 BWP6.560.00
13/05/23
Day trip to Moremi US$800 paid in US$ cash
£622
14/05/23
Rest Day
15/05/23
3 hour boat cruise US$1000 paid in US$ cash
£778
16/05/23
Nata Lodge
Spoke to Brenda as invoice had 1 night but charged 2 nights which we wanted Colleen confirmed in email. Night drives are available book when there
£160 BWP 2620.00
17/05/23
18/05/23
Avis Kasane
Return car to Avis by 14.00 Chobe Safari lodge collected and transferred us.
Chobe Safari Lodge
Booked with booking.com 8 nights Breakfast and Dinner To pay at Chobe
£1411 BWP = 23,168,50
19/05/23
Pay for ½ day Safari at lodge negotiated with Dorkus £280 per 6hrs for 6 days & One boat trip £70
We spent day 9 in the Safari Lodge hotel in Maun. The previous day had been wonderful, but it was a long tiring day. To get maximum enjoyment out of our adventure we knew we needed to put in some “nothing “ relaxation days …this was one of these. We slept in late, prepared the bag to send to 5he laundry and reflected on our previous day….. The Okavango is an extremely expensive adventure, camping makes it slightly cheaper but even that’s probably one of the most expensive camping experiences anyone can have. Mobile camping with a company also reduces the cost slightly but John and I are no campers. It was the same as in the Pans area, unless you are an extremely competent 4×4 driver and know how to get through soft sand tracks which can leave all 4 tyres spinning helplessly, you need to go with a Safari company or hire both a vehicle and a driver……( for those who think they are good enough to self drive don’t forget to let your tyres down ….hard tyres really churn the sand up so always drive this type of road with soft tyres. One of the reasons it’s so expensive here is that with both the two safaris we did in the pans and the two from Maun you have to either be a party of 4 or pay for 4 people…..it seemed the majority of companies were charging US$250 per person and all insisted on a minimum of 4 people…..this is what makes it so expensive when it’s just the 2 of us…most people on normal budgets just find the cost prohibiting……..we had decided that this was a very special occasion so it was worth “splashing the cash”.
We updated our Facebook pages, what’s append home and prepared for the following day. We had agreed with Monametsi that we would have a full day in Moremi Game reserve. He had kindly dropped the price to US$800 for the day.
Day 10
We were stood outside the hotel at 5.00am, ( an hour which doesn’t appear on my clock at home, unless we are jet-lagged !!!), waiting for Monametsi to arrive and for one of his Safari vehicles ……time was passing at 5.50am we were about to give up our wait…besides it’s cold even with fleeces, scarfs and gloves at that time of the morning…..just as we were about to go back to bed! …the Safari vehicle arrived…. It turned out the battery had been stolen during the night so the driver had put his car battery on it but that wouldn’t allow us to stop and start with confidence. So we were to set off and wait at the end of the tar for Monametsi to catch us up with a new battery, our breakfast and lunch…. Which is exactly what happened although the blankets were forgotten and we were very cold…
With new battery fitted off we went again…before we got to the Reserves gate we saw a variety of wildlife both dead and alive……this included the sad sight of an elephant who had got stuck in the mud of a waterhole and died, another elephant was showing its last respects.
Once inside Moremi Reserve we stopped at the gate again and had breakfast, used the ablution block and watched some squirrels playing and hornbills scrounging bits of dropped food. Then we were off on our day of sightseeing and wildlife spotting. We saw copious amounts of Lechwe, Tsessebe, ( both of these we rarely see so we were delighted to see such big herds)
We also spotted elephants, zebra, giraffe, warthog, hippos, and lots of birds however our search for lions was in vein.
The reserve was quiet and, other than at the main gate, we saw very few other vehicles all day. Some of the tracks we traversed looked hardly used and were extremely overgrown. This added to the experience as we parted the grasses, it was almost off-roading, and the air of suspense hung around as as we scoured the landscape for exciting wildlife spots.
We pulled up under a tree out of, the now, hot sun for lunch……Days like this need either a strong bladder or nerves of steel if you risk nipping behind the bush !!! We once again passed through the South Gate as we made our exit before the 6.00pm deadline.
It was a lovely day, we returned about 8 pm and had a nice supper in the hotel…..if we were honest the day probably wasn’t worth the money but it was an area we had never explored before and we thoroughly enjoyed seeing different types of landscape and terrain as well as the wonderful wildlife. We once again ate in the restaurant. We chatted happily to a newly retired Doctor and his wife both of whom were from England. They were on a very interesting ‘Intrepid Traveller’ Overland tour from Cape Town to Victoria Falls. The itinerary was truly adventurous and we might have been interested in something like this in the future if it hadn’t been for the couple saying how exhausting it was….this is often a problem on guided organised tours, they rarely put the much needed rest days in, which I prefer to call laundry and catch-up days…or just sleep-in days…..it’s really worth remembering this, I’d learnt my lesson on a trip to India where we’d gone a straight 7 days of sightseeing and moving on , we’d comeback needing a holiday !!!!!
2 J's World of Adventure 