Merry Christmas and Happy New Year from the Kruger!

After Swaziland we drove into the Kruger National Park. We stayed in the park for 18 nights! On our first day in the park we saw lots of animals: crocodiles, hippos, elephants, giraffes, buffalo, zebras, rhinos, lions and lots and lots of impala. No leopard though.

The next day we were told about a leopard that had killed an impala and put it in a tree. We went to the place and there were lots of cars. I could just see the leopard, but it was hard to spot. On this day we saw all of the big 5, within about 3 hours of driving!! It was amazing.

The next day we saw 2 leopards, one was in a tree and the next one was walking along a cliff.

We spent the first few nights in the bottom of the park. Then we went out of the park to Hazyview for a parkrun. I had lost my sneakers so had to do it in my boots. It was on a golf course and there were lots of warning signs for hippos and crocodiles! But after the run we went shopping and I got some nice blue sneakers!

Then we drove to the north of the Kruger park. We stayed for a few days at the Punda Maria Camp and this is where we had Christmas. We made some decorations and put them on a tree near our car. We also made our Santa symbol so that he could find us. Genevieve and I decorated some stockings. Mine was a christmas pudding and Vivi drew an angel and Mummy sewed it on. We didn’t leave any carrots out for the reindeer because we were worried the monkeys would eat it instead.  (ed – Daddy used a pillowcase but Santa didn’t put anything in it. Not even beer).

On Christmas day, we checked our stockings and they were filled with things! I got a magic trick set, a lego friends heart box, a book of sudokus and some fantasy model mermaid colouring. I also got the game boggle, it is really fun, you have to shake some cubes with letters on them and make up words. Daddy gave me his old leatherman. Grandma also sent us some nice dresses and new swimming togs. We went swimming a lot because it got to 47 degrees. It was so hot we tried to cook an egg in our frying pan, just from the sun. (I didn’t want to eat it though).

On Boxing Day we did a BBQ with some of our Overlanding friends. It was very fun.

There weren’t so many animals in the north of the park. But we did have a good sighting of some African Wild Dogs.

Then we also saw a monitor lizard in the camp site. It was huge, then it climbed a tree. A man told us it was looking for eggs.

We had New Years Day at Satara camp and did a sunset drive. It was really good. We saw elephants and giraffe and the guide told us all about them.  He also pointed out lots of birds, which wasn’t so interesting. Though I did like the Verreaux’s Eagle Owl. The best bit was seeing 4 lions that were resting in a dry river bed. We watched them for ages, then they came right up to the car before they went off hunting. We also saw some hyenas and 2 cubs before we went back to camp.

My favourite camp in the park was Malelane.

Then we had a really long drive back to Durban. On the way out of the park we saw 8 lions lying in the road. If we were any later we wouldn’t have seen them.

Now we are cleaning the car and all of the stuff in it. It is hard work. (Mainly for Mummy and Daddy)