South Africa Day Twelve: Kruger Park

There being no urgency to our getting up particularly early today, we got up at the more civilized hour of 5:30 and cooked a nice breakfast in the lodge’s kitchen. It was a bit of a surprise to find that the lodges--even this “Bush Camp”--have such advanced facilities, with all the bungalows having their own kitchens and bathrooms (ours had two!) and warm water and a barbecue facility. We left camp around 6:30 for a day of driving around the park’s drives. The park has roads all over the place, many with asphalted surfaces but even more with gravel, and we chose to drive mostly along the gravel roads, expecting to see more animals there. After having been largely skunked yesterday, we had great hopes for today, but they went largely unmet. We did see some good animals, though, including giraffes, loads of zebras, and even a rare bird that unfortunately flew off before we could photograph it.

Our camp for the next two nights is larger than the previous one, with a restaurant, and shop, and gas station (which is very important!). After checking in we headed back out for some drives around the park, but again did not see much of great interest, so we wound up back in the lodge by 4:30, in time to watch the sunset over the Letaba River below the bar, nursing a beer (or two) while observing elephants and waterbucks meandering back and forth to the river for a last drink before retiring for the night.