Kruger Park - South Africa

 

From Zambia we flew back to South Africa to visit Kruger Park.

Kruger Park is one of the largest game reserves in Africa. Located in the northeast corner of South Africa it is 7,580 square miles in size, a bit smaller than Connecticut. It was the first national park in South Africa established in 1926.  There are plans in place to make it even larger by incorporating land in the neighboring countries of Mozambique and Zimbabwe.  This new park would be over 13,500 square miles in size and called the Great Limpopo Transfrontier Park.

 

 

For viewing the wildlife at Kruger Park we were again loaded into our trusty "mobile lion lunch platters" but unlike at Chobe these had sturdy canvass side panels which are sure to withstand the fiercest of lion attacks.



Kruger Park is named after Paul Kruger, the 5^th and 4-time president of South Africa. He looks a bit like an old lion himself.

Upon entering Kruger Park you immediately notice several things that are different at this Park than any of the previous parks we have visited in Africa. For one the park is fenced. There is a tall, electrified fence around the entire perimeter of the park. That is one long fence considering the park is over 4.8 million acres. This fence is there to keep the animals in and the poachers out. Game wardens have the authority to shoot anyone suspected of poaching on sight.

Along with electrical fences comes electric poles and lines.  No generators and part-time power here.

 

Even the roads are paved.

Some of the small side roads were not paved, but even those were graveled, wide and mostly smooth.

And on these nice roads were a lot of personal vehicles with families. At the other parks traffic was 99 percent guided safari vehicles.

 

Here they even had huge tour buses.

And with all the paved roads and tourists in their cars there were also road signs. We did not see a single road sign the entire time we were in the other parks.  Kruger kind of had an American National Park feel.

Another thing was the vegetation, it was mostly very thick and dense, making spotting and photographing animals difficult.
 Can you spot the elephant?

There he is, sort of.

How about this leopard, can you spot him?

Have to zoom in and look close.

 

Some animals that you would think would be hard to hide, could in this brush.
 Like these giraffes.

 

Some were far away, like this cheetah.

And these hippos.

 



Some were near impossible to recognize at all.
Can you see the two white rhinos?

Even zoomed in they are hard to see. They are the two light gray spots on either side of the tree in the center of the photo.

We saw a lion, but the photo was worthless with all the brush.

As was this photo of two buffalo.

Even if I had a camera and lens like this guy I doubt I could get a good photo of some of the animals in such thick brush.

We found out from our guide that we were here near the end of the hot, rainy season (November thru March) and that during the dry cool season the vegetation is less dense and the animals are more easily seen.

Occasionally there would be a small clearing in the brush and you could spot some animals.
Like these wildebeest.

Zebras

And elephant.

But where we would get the best views would be when the animals were right on the road. 
 Like this impala.

Or this rare jaguar and bimmer.

Just seeing if you are paying attention.

But seriously the animals would often be right out on the road. Like these impala.

 

Speaking of impala, they are referred to as the McDonald’s of Africa…you can find them everywhere and everyone eats there. They even have a big M on their rear ends.

Zebra

Warthogs

 Hyena

 



Guineas

 

And elephant

 



Sometimes you could see evidence of animals on the road. Like these lion tracks.

And these turdles.

We also got some good shots of animals that were just off the side of the road. Like these giraffe.

This was a very old giraffe. They can live up to around 22 years. This one does not appear to have much time left.

This zebra had some little friends along for a ride. They are called red billed oxpeckers. They pick ticks off the zebra.

 

We also saw some new animals. Like this bushbuck.

A steenbok

A nyala

And this big male Kudu with its huge spiraled horns.

The kudu is the symbol used for all South African National Parks.

 

We also saw some interesting birds. Like these white backed vultures.

A saddle bill stork, which looks like it has a post-it note stuck on its face.

A pied kingfisher.

Yellow billed hornbill.

 

And a ground hornbill which reminded us of the frigate birds we saw in the Galapagos Islands.

Lest you think we had no real excitement at Kruger Park there was one moment of panic. While driving along a small gravel road surrounded by thick brush, as we rounded a sharp curve, a huge rhino came charging out of no where just a few feet in front of our truck startling everyone including the driver and then went rushing off into the brush on the opposite side of the road. With hearts pounding we only got a couple so-so photos has he quickly disappeared.

 

So that’s it for wildlife in Africa.

 The End.

 

Next stop Cape Town, South Africa