Since my last post, we’ve taken a boat tour through Blyde River Canyon, spent a day in Kruger National Park, and enjoyed our final game drive at the lodge.
I feel like the “Fat Five” has begun to make its appearance. The food here has been exceptional, and every meal ends with dessert. Refusing would feel almost rude. So, as visitors to this country, and for the sake of diplomacy, we’ve eaten everything set before us. It seems only right. As experienced safari people, Sarah & I ‘get it’, Victoria, the safari newbie, does not quite grasp the concept and usually orders half portions. She should get with the program because I’m sure staff are talking about us behind our backs.
It’s always a pleasure to be out on the water. The Blyde River Canyon tour was a relaxed hour-and-a-half boat ride. We seemed to get on the “party boat”. I’m not sure what the occasion was, but the many locals on the tour were having a raucous time.
The dam at the outlet stands 71 metres high. The resulting reservoir isn’t used for power generation, but instead provides steady irrigation for the many citrus and mango farms we passed during the hour-and-a-half drive from the lodge. The landscape in the gorge was striking: red rock and green vegetation reminiscent of Sedona, combined with the scale and height of the Grand Canyon. Interesting to see, though truth be told, we would have preferred another safari.
Our day in Kruger National Park was spectacular, punctuated by light drizzle and occasional rain. I wrote earlier that our lodge was adjacent to Kruger. In fact, it took Mike, our guide, an hour to drive there at highway speeds… so not that close afterall! On our drive, we spotted a cape buffalo, and a pack of african wild dogs making quick work of an impala.
Kruger National Park covers 19,500 square kilometres—roughly three times the size of Banff National Park, just under three times the size of Algonquin park, or just slightly smaller than the state of New Jersey – pick the analogy that works for you. The area around our lodge is more heavily forested, with a few tall trees and dense clusters of smaller trees and bushes. By contrast, the section of Kruger we explored was much more open: the occasional large tree, scattered shrubs, and small trees set amid wide grassy expanses. This openness made wildlife easier to spot, and the game seemed correspondingly more abundant.
At one point we passed within a few metres of a pair of male lions lying beside the road. The photo below was taken on Vic’s iPhone; I had my large zoom lens mounted at the time. Yes, I should have switched to my other lens instead of ending up with a close-up of eyes and nose. But there was a long line of cars waiting for their turn, and for some unknown reason, I did not think ahead while we were waiting.
We hadn’t fully appreciated how lucky we were at the lodge to have private game drives with just the three of us plus Sammy and Vusi, our driver and spotter. On our final lodge drive, there were nine guests in the vehicle. They were all very pleasant, so we have no complaints. But it was quite a change. We did find the rhinos again and the cheetah still hanging around the electric fence. We also visited a separately fenced area where a small herd of Cape buffalo is being raised. Apparently, there are potential health issues for buffalo on the Kruger side of the main road, so this group has been kept separate. Once their numbers increase, they’ll be released into the rest of the reserve. With only 15 buffalo and no experience with predators, releasing them too soon would almost certainly end badly: the lions would make short work of them before the buffalo learned how to survive in an area with predators.
Overall, we enjoyed our stay here. There was one weird thing: the lodge has some questionable art and coffee table books: they were slightly risqué and seemed inappropriate and out of place. We also felt overcharged on the tickets to the boat tour that we bought through the lodge – but shame on us though for not looking elsewhere first. Victoria really enjoyed the on-reserve game drives. That’s not surprizing as this was her first safari. It was nice for Sarah and I to get reacquainted with safaris, but we know there are much better safaris to come. We are all looking forward to those.
We left the lodge on Friday just before lunch and spent about an hour at Bosveld Village on the way to Hoedspruit Airport. Unfortunately, Vic sprained her ankle on an unmarked step. Hopefully there is a speedy recovery in her near future. From Bosveld, it was a 15 minute ride to the airport, a one-hour flight to Joburg, a 46 minute ride on the Gautrain to Pretoria, and a painful (for Victoria) 9 minute walk to get to the ANEW Centurion Hotel. We have today to ourselves, and tomorrow (Sunday) we join the OAT tour group for 17 days of safaris in Zimbabwe, Botswana and Zambia.
