Trip To Kruger
Park Area - South Africa - May 2006
(click any picture to get enlargement)
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Nicole lives in
Pretoria, which is located in the upper middle part of South Africa.
Unfortunately there
aren't any beaches to relax on, or mountains to explore.
There are,
however, many nearby game reserves which have native African animals. The
largest of these reserves is to the east and is called Kruger National Park.
Bordering Kruger Park we found many private game reserves which help protect the
wildlife and offer opportunities for tourists to see them.
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It takes about
4 hours to get to the Kruger area from
Pretoria.
About 3 hours into the trip the terrain turns from a
highland
plain, to a canyon area, and then to the lowland plains.
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Getting Near Canyon Land
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At Canyon Boundary
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From Canyon floor
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The canyon offers a place to take a
break. We hiked to waterfalls and saw many types of flowers.
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We also found a place that had
"potholes", which are holes cut into the rock ....
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... by smaller rocks which were swirled around
and around in the current.
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We
visited the Sabi Sabi Game
Reserve, which is next to the Kruger Park.
The daily routine was morning game drive, breakfast, lunch & hike,
afternoon/night game drive and then dinner.
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The local inhabitants are very poor... and they had to be quite imaginative with
the limited resources they had available to them.
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Dry River Bed Area
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Herd of Impala
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Elegant Lone Impala
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Herd of Wildabeest
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Wart Hog Family
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One-horned Buffalo
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The next series of shots come from
a rare and wonderful sighting.
Our guide received a call on the radio and
got a big smile on his face ......
a day-time sighting of three leopards !
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A mom and two children in a tree (well camouflaged).
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Child eating on an Impala that is falling
apart
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Mom jumps down to retrieve a piece of
leg
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No girl, the food is not on the Land Rover!
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Aha! She finds it and brings it back to
the kids
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The kids munched on the Impala
for quite a while. We just sat there and watched in awe; they were truly
beautiful animals.
The guide said that in
all his years, he had never seen such a close sighting! Needless
to say, we felt quite lucky.
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After a while the mom jumped down and ...
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... she left the area while
the kids napped.... typical!
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When leaving the reserve we heard a loud noise ....
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... and an elephant came from the woods;
cool!
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All-in-all a very nice visit to Sabi Sabi
Reserve
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We then ventured into Kruger National Park,
which is a self-drive park. At first we didn't see many animals, but
towards the end of the afternoon it got quite exciting.
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Baoboa Tree (looks like planted
up-side-down)
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Finally I include a picture of a pretty
bird!
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Guinea Fowl running across the road
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Small Herd of Elephants
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Big Herd of Buffalo
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Lone Buffalo
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Busy Kruger Highway (this view made us
laugh)
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He's giving us a dirty look for using HIS
roadway
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The Giraffes were the highlight of this trip
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Sometimes you only saw the giraffe's head and other times you were able
to see their entire bodies.
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As they gently strolled along, they truly
looked like majestic giants.
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Family of Baboons
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Upon leaving we met a ....
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... friendly, hungry monkey.
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Kuname Resort - We won a trip to this resort at an outing sponsored by a travel
agent. This resort was relatively new and run by a family in which the
owner sold his business and bought the resort for their "early
retirement" in the bush.
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Resort on a prairie, with ....
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...dry river beds which ...
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... animals use as roads.
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We had game drives each morning and evening;
there were few guests :)
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The guide sees a cat but cannot tell what it
is....
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...what luck, it's a leopard!
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Towards a warthog family
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The "cute" family departs
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Wild Dogs
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This ends this section on our trips to Kruger
Park. Hopefully we will get back to the park many times in the future, as
each time we experience something different.
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