Africa Revisited. South Africa. Sabie to The Kruger

A video ( about 20 minutes of our route from Monateng to Merry Pebbles Campsite.

Travelled from Monateng Camping in Pretoria to Merry Pebbles near Sabie, just outside The Kruger. Such a beautiful drive with absolutely stunning views, such amazing scenery! We loved the trip though the Long Tom Pass and we actually managed to find Long Tom a very large silver canon. Long Tom was the British name for this Boer operated field artillery gun that fired 38 kg shells, with a reach of 10 km.It caused the British generals and their soldiers a lot of grief. Shame about the tacky craft stalls at the entrance.

Travelling through the Pass, the scenery became almost overwhelming. We went through clouds, fires and over some very challenging roads. It was fun following the maps as the town names had changed, Lydenburg had become Mashishing, a bit confusing as both names appeared to be interchangeable

Very difficult here to choose the right pictures, as with every turn of the road there was a new picture waiting. These we taken with Den's new super duper Canon lens.

We did not allow the lack of windscreen wipers to deter us, although we did stop just outside Pretoria to have them fixed. Thank goodness for Tracks4Africa who with the help of Madam Sat Nag, found the Toyota Dealer. New fuse safely installed and we made for the next campsite. The Toyota dealer commented that the Toyota Hilux had a known wiper problem and that it looked as if the fuse had been changed a number of times before. Those words would come back to haunt us.

Merry Pebbles was a great site. We met up with a second group of happy Bobo campers. A twenty strong German group with two Bobo mechanics in tow. We made ourselves known. Just as well, because we would have further dealings with the mechanics. A beautiful meal at Merry Pebbles in a lovely restaurant.

Very spacious site with a lovely swimming pool. We didn't actually try the water but it looked clean and cool. We tried our kettle, a hot tip from Nic and Cara, it worked so well! Ignoring the Elf & Safety brigade ( we are not operating at EU standards here) , we were VERY careful. This had to the hot tip of the holiday and saved us so much time and gas. Just as well, as the gas bottle we had been given and which had to be returned full, was half empty! We did have to go back once, as a certain person left it sitting on it's perch.
NB: We would not do this at home or anywhere near children playing, we usually used a short extension lead on the ground.

This made us smile, a very long morning briefing for the German party, it looked very intense. Morning meeting over we all made our way to the next stop. Not in a convoy but we couldn't actually avoid taking the same roads.

I wonder what the collective noun for a clutch of Bobo Campers Is?  Bobo ettes, Boboeeze?

 Ever on wards, we were travelling through the Blyde River Canyon to the Forever resort at Blydepoort.

We passed through the Blyde Canyon, the second largest canyon in Africa, past waterfalls and a view through "God's Window". We went a little off piste and found some other less touristy waterfalls down a dirt track.

We also passed the "Three Rondavels", huge cliff rocks reminiscent of the local people's houses or rondavels, hence the name.

 We stopped at Bourke's Luck Potholes and spent a happy hour scrambling about the rocks, very touristy and busy as all the coaches stop there but worth a visit.

A view downwards towards the potholes. It was really hot so we were quite pleased to be down in a bit of shade by the water.

Next stop The Kruger, we were really looking forward to a visit and we would be staying three nights at different camps so we hoped to spot some game, we would not be disappointed. We stayed at Satara Rest Camp, Letaba Rest Camp and Shingwedzi Rest Camp. All of them slightly different but the facilities were quite good. The best game sightings were further south. We went in at Orphen Gate which was fine but on reflection it would have been better to enter the park further South via Hazyview. Next time we visit we will try and go for 5 nights to enable some early morning and late evening drives. As it was we were not disappointed. A highlight of the visit had to be the snoring lions, they were sleeping off a night's kill in a dry riverbed with a lioness standing guard. The snores could be heard right across the valley. 
A small selection of some off the animals we spotted. Sadly no rhino or leopards!

Our very first sighting within 10 minutes of arriving at Kruger.

Water buffalo, one of the big five.

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Parked up at Satara. It was actually quite busy here, but we managed to find some electric.

Sad, but a fact of life in the wild. Vultures picking on the bones of a dead elephant. The smell was horrific. We hoped the elly died from natural causes!

Funny little Southern Ground Hornbill. 

I think these are one of my favourites zebbies.

Greater Kudu, these are everywhere and in beautiful condition.

Spotted hyena, he was just resting at the side of the road, in the shade of a tree during the day. He posed beautifully.

 Where there is one giraffe there is always another hiding in the bushes often in family groups.

Blue wilderbeests, these seem to get on well with the zebbies, we often saw them together. At one point we saw hundreds in the distance we presumed looking for water.

A lone bull, we were lucky enough to also see many family groups.

The lioness on guard. She was so well camouflaged it took us a while to spot her.

The snoring echoed around the river bed and was really loud. Lazy lions. We think there were around six lions in this pride we only actually saw four.

African Buffalo pretty prolific in these parts.

Further North in The Kruger, long roads but pretty empty.

From a viewpoint on a bridge we spotted this Ellie queue.

Basking in the sun under the bridge an African Rock Python, cleverly spotted by Den!

A Leopard Tortoise crossing the road. Lucky he wasn't squashed, we saw some that were.

Impala enjoying a morning sniff. These are a beautiful colour and blend so well into their environment.

Not only animals in The Kruger this baobab tree was massive.

We loved The Kruger, away from the main roads, the park was actually pretty quiet and we found some brilliant lookout points. The 4 x 4 came into its own here, especially on some of the very remote back roads. 

On our own by a lookout, it was so quiet and peaceful.

The campsites were dusty and further south a bit crowded but we were out driving most of the time. We ate at two of the camps, one of the restaurants was a bush camp, we tried the pap and sauce......not our favourite, but the wine was nice and the atmosphere was friendly.

 A slight rerun of the wiper saga on day 2, as guess what? It started to rain, albeit briefly and the windscreen wipers packed up again! We arranged to meet our friendly Bobo mechanic back at Satara, only a three hour drive there and back, he changed another fuse and fiddled with a relay, off we went. Problem solved...well no. More to follow. 

A  short dashcam ( 20 mins)  of our drive from Sabie through the Kruger to Tshipse. 

Looking forward to the next visit.
One more stop in South Africa and then on to Botswana.