Day 5: Kruger National Park, South Africa

Yes! Yes! Yes! Yes! Today is the day! We are actually in Africa! We are in a bus, on our way to Kruger National Park for a safari tour!

I have to admit, it is getting a little boring just sitting here, but it’s fun, looking out the windows into the dark night sky, and talking to some of the people on the bus. But, unfortunately, I am sitting next to that annoying tour guide, and he won’t stop recounting every tiny fact about everything…. Like when we were talking about what animals we were hoping to see, and someone said that they wanted to see some giraffes, he burst into a long boring (but I have to admit, a little interesting) trail of facts about giraffes. Things like, “Did you know that during childbirth, a giraffe remains standing?” and “Giraffes sleep for between 20 minutes to 2 hours a day. Even when they sleep for the longer period, they do so in 20-minute naps.”

… And now I’m starting to drift off to blissful monkey-dreams.

Where am I? Oh, where’s the bus? Oh, I get it. I must’ve fallen asleep on the bus or something because I remember meeting my family, but that was obviously a dream, ....because now I am in a lodge bedroom,… so that means… I am here! Yes, I am at the Kruger National Park!

It’s still dark outside so it must still be night-time. Wait, there’s a digital clock over there saying it’s 5:00. Hey, weren’t we supposed to be up soon so we can go on the sunset safari? Because apparently, the best game viewing is in the early hours of the morning.

Wait, I can hear the shower on, that must be Tianna, because she’s not here. And in the next room, I can hear James and Fenella talking, and there is the rustling of clothes. Okay, they have opened the door and are waking up the rest of the kids. I am getting up and ready now, and I am wondering if there is anything to eat…

It is now 5:30, and we are climbing into our safari vehicle with our tracker as well as our ranger (and unfortunately that annoying tour guide), and we are about to set off for an early morning adventure.

As we are driving, I look out for animals, especially monkeys, and I'm hoping to get some pictures, and to find out something about my family. Oh wait, wait, I saw something move in the bushes. “Hey guys look at that!” I say. We all look at the moving bushes. The ranger drives the car forward a bit, and we see a meerkat family starting to pop out of the bushes, and roam around. Awww, they are so cute! And the tour guide says: “Did you know, that the first explorer to set foot in the area was a Dutch man François de Cuiper, and he led a Dutch east India company expedition, to explore the big area. Unfortunately, native tribes people close to Gomondwane attacked the expedition. But only around 1838, Voortrekker expeditions were successfully led by Lous Trichardt and Hans van Rensburg and managed to set up forward settlements.”

I really wish that he didn’t have to come along! He is beginning to drive me bananas! Anyway, we continue to drive up the pathways. Apparently, we are heading towards a watering hole. But along the way, I still have to listen to the annoying tour guide: “Many Europeans and farmers came to the Lowveld, tempted by rumors of gold and lots of valuable items, like ivory and skins. But unfortunately, this meant that the wildlife started decreasing rapidly, because of hunting and the trading of animal skins and horns. It wasn’t looking too good for the animals.”

“Wow! Look, it’s the watering hole! It’s a whole lot bigger than I imagined! And look at all the animals!”

“Yes, the reason all the animals are starting to arrive, is because the sun is starting to rise, and during the day it's too hot for them to do much, so since it’s sunrise, its basically like the end of the day for them.”  I was so relieved to find out that that was the tracker speaking and not the tour guide!

I can see all kinds of animals: giraffes, zebra, a few birds, antelope, some elephants and, hang on, are those monkeys? Yes I think those are monkeys!

After trying to get the monkeys to come closer to the car (because it was too dangerous to get out of the car and come to them), but failing because they were more interested in drinking, we return to camp from our Game Drive and eat a really yummy breakfast. A few other camps are having breakfast there as well, and there is a really nice boy there, holding a stuffed dinosaur, called Rhino. He is wearing a cowboy hat and is pretty cool, so we hang out for a while ‘til it is time to go for the safari walk. 


Once more, our guide tells us some fascinating stories of the bushveld, as well as the traditional culture and medicinal goods from some of the plants and trees. We even see a pride of sleeping lions a few hundred metres away, and the guide tells us to be quiet as we go past, so we won’t wake them and be spotted. Another thing we see is a family of rhinos (What Rhino the dinosaur was hoping to see on his safari!). Luckily, they are sleeping too, or else we would be a rhino’s dessert.

When we are finished the amazing walk, we relax at the camp until lunch, and I have a chance to talk to Rhino again, as he has also just come back from his bush walk. I find out that he (unlike Kat) was on a similar tour, except he was only going to places in Asia, Europe and of course, Africa. I also find out that he lives in Canada, and has been loved by his owner, Jim, since Jim was born. I tell him that I have come all the way from Melbourne, and have been loved by Tianna since she was about four or five, but I can’t exactly remember.

After lunch, we have more time to relax. Rhino and me spend the rest of the afternoon cooling down in the pool, playing with the beach ball, floating like stars, and racing from one end of the pool to another. We even get to eat some delicious banana ice cream before the evening Game Drive.

And now, as the beautiful African sun is beginning to set, we once again climb into the safari vehicle (with the annoying tour guide) and we set off for our sunset safari! The animals are started becoming more active again, and the nocturnal animals must be getting ready for their hunting.  The ranger is once again at the wheel, while our tracker is looking for tracks and looking for animals. Since there aren’t that many animals just yet, the ranger stops the car in a nice spot to enjoy the sunset view while eating a few snacks. But this means the tour guide continues with his facts: “The President Paul Kruger was told about what was happening to the helpless wildlife because of the hunters, and he was determined to stop this. He managed to convince the Transvaal parliament to set up a protected area for the wildlife to roam free in the Lowveld region.”

“The very first ranger in the park was Paul Bester, who made his residence in rural hut which is now the site of the headquarters camp, Skukuza. Documents about the history of the Kruger national park can looked at, in the Skukuza library. Now-”  


“Look! Look!” I am whisper-shouting, “ Is that, is that a leopard?”

We all stare into the dark, where two glowing eyes, belonging to a hungry-looking leopard, emerge from the blackness. The ranger points the spotlight at it as it creeps towards a small herd of zebra, eyeing a baby one near the back of the herd. I don’t want to see what I think I am going to see. So I look away, and hear the loud noise the zebras make as they run off and the leopard growls. That painful whine I just heard was probably the last breath of that poor baby zebra. Luckily the ranger has decided to move on so I can uncover my eyes.

I hope we can see all of the big five. So far we have seen a pride of lions earlier on the safari walk, one leopard just now, some elephants at the watering hole this morning, and we saw a family of rhino’s on the safari walk too. So the only animals of the big five that we haven’t seen are the buffaloes. I have told the tracker and the ranger this, and they said they would keep an eye out.

We continue to drive further and further into the darkness “Wait!” I say again “Look!” We all look again, and we see some monkeys swinging in their trees. The tracker shines the spotlight on them, while Mum, Dad, Tianna, Skyla, and the tour guide snap photo’s like they have been doing all day. But not me. As you might have guessed,  I am trying to communicate with the monkeys to see if they are, or if they know my family. Luckily, I have been studying real monkey language, so it might be a bit easier to communicate with them.

“OO-OO-AA-AH!” I yell, which, in monkey language means “hello!”. “OOOOO-OO-AH-AH-EEE-EE-OOO-OOO-AH-EE-OOO!” which in monkey language means, “ My name is Paul, I am here on vacation to find my family. Do you think you might know them?”

“OOO-EEEEEK-AAAAAH-OOOOO-OOOO-EEEEE-EEEE-AAAAH!” One of them answers back, which in monkey language means “ Paul? No, sorry, don’t know anyone called Paul, or anyone who would know! But you don’t sound or look like any of the other monkeys around here, what type of monkey are you?”

I tell them that I am not actually a real monkey, but a stuffed one. They tell me they have never heard of such a ridiculous idea. But they say that they hope I will find my family anyway. And with that, they climb into their trees, while the tour guide starts talking once again, “As I was saying, Half a million years ago, the first stone age hunters wandered around the plains in search of game. Later, the plains were populated by modern day Bushmen who have left interesting rock paintings all over Southern Africa. The Kruger National Park has over one hundred sites of these paintings.”

I am extremely relieved to hear Eden shout out, “Look Mum, black cows!” Once again, we all take a look at where little Eden is pointing. “Oh,” Fenella says, “ You mean buffaloes!”

Yes! We’ve done it! We’ve seen the big five! 

We watch the buffaloes for a while, and find that, like Eden said, they are a bit like cows. But after a while the younger kiddies start to get bored as well as tired, so we decide we are finished for the night, and we drive back to camp.

We end the evening with a lovely dinner around the campfire with Rhino and some of the other people staying here, plus the ranger, who tells all kinds of campfire stories and some of the staff even sing native African tribal songs until really, really late. But I was so relieved that the tour guide seemed a whole lot more interested in his food than his facts, so the last fact that I heard from him was,    “ The Kruger National Park is a living memorial to president Paul Kruger and those who have supported his vision of a protected wilderness reserve which will always remind us about the wildlife we are dangerously close to loosing.”

And surprisingly I actually found that rather interesting. Wow! What a day. I got to see the big five, I got to meet a stuffed dinosaur called Rhino, I got to see the watering hole, some meerkats, I got to have dinner in front of a campfire and roast marshmallows, I got to wake up to see the sunrise and sunset, (I am not an early riser, so I have never seen the sunrise from the beginning), I was forced to listen to an annoying (but annoyingly interesting) tour guide, I got banana ice-cream, I got to swim in a pool, and I talked to some monkeys who had never heard of a stuffed monkey toy. Overall, I think it was quite an amazing and exciting experience. Tomorrow we are going to have a similar schedule, so at least we get to have this experience all over again. I hope this time I get to see a cheetah run, or a hippo, or maybe even some lions that are awake and hunting. But anyway, the next time I will check in, is in Europe.

Next stop The Louvre, Paris, France!

But first, I might just sleep for a few hours, just a few…