Hello!
A few weeks back we did a blog post full of highlights from the first half of our epic Kruger National Park trip, and here is the second half!
Sorry it’s taken a little while to do the follow-up part – the workload on the KrugerExplorer App has been heavy but we’ve made so much progress with our new tech partner and, we have to say, it is looking amazing!
Here’s a sneak preview of the main menu page and a species profile...
Note there are more features and content on both of these pages when scrolling down in the App, so a huge amount of stuff to play with and learn from. We'll share all the features and content once the App launches too.
Needless to say, we are seriously excited about it and are feeling good that we will be able to launch the App, plus our new website, in early July.
If you want to receive an email for when it launches, just add your email address to our Learn More page and we’ll make sure you are one of the first to know…!
But back to all that amazing Kruger wildlife…
Travelling south of the Olifants River sees a huge amount of change in the local habitats – the sea of Mopane shrubs north of the river finally yields to more open, rocky plains, which in turn become beautiful grasslands the closer you get to Satara.
It’s also a superb area of the park for big cat sightings and I was fortunate to spend an entire morning with this brilliant little leopard cub….
He was waiting patiently in the tree for mum to return with food. I didn’t see her that day but did find her out hunting on other drives. She’s a supermum and has successfully raised other cubs in the past too.
Kruger is also home to smaller species of cat, including the African wild cat. This beauty lives in and around the Satara Rest Camp and, despite her appearance, she is a true wild animal and not a domesticated or feral cat.
I was really pleased with the results of these photos and it was certainly the best sighting of this very skittish animal that I’ve ever enjoyed!
In the southern parts of Kruger, one of the great highlights is a visit to Lake Panic Hide near Skukuza Rest Camp. It’s a stunning setting and the bird life is outstanding, with the occasional mammal coming in to drink too. I saw so many bird species at Lake Panic that I did a whole blog post dedicated to them! Here are some of the best pics…
From the top, these images are the view from Lake Panic Hide, malachite kingfisher, little egret, red-chested cuckoo, grey heron and squacco heron.
Rhinos have fallen victim to the terrible poaching crisis and have been massacred in their thousands across Kruger and the wider Southern African region in recent years. I did not see any black rhinos during my seven weeks in Kruger – they are rapidly approach local extinction.
I was able to see some of the few remaining white rhinos. I won’t say where for fear of the information being even vaguely useful to a poacher but I was able to get some wonderful photographs of this species that has become severely endangered at the hands of mankind.
Lower Sabie is a wonderful area of the park, with a great mix of habitats and dense wildlife populations. There are no big stories with these guys, just amazing sightings…
At the far south of the park, Berg-en-Dal offers a very unusual safari experience because it is nestled in craggy hills. Seeing the wildlife in this environment offers something very different and it was a huge amount of fun driving over mountain passes following so many weeks on largely flat plains in the South African Lowveld!
My final stop was Pretoriuskop and some epic drives, searching for bird species only found locally and hoping for some final excellent big game sightings – it didn’t disappoint! This cheetah, waterbuck and klipspringer were among the many highlights...
Spending so much time in Kruger National Park was an incredible experience and privilege and a life ambition fulfilled.
Even more fortunately, Charlotte and I will be back there in just a few months, again traversing the entire park from north to south, and also picking up and showing Charlotte’s parents around along the way!
We’re extremely excited and it will be even more fun to do it with our KrugerExplorer App in hand for the first time…! :-)
Thanks as ever for reading,
Danny & Charlotte
Follow our journeys through Kruger and getting the KrugerExplorer App off the ground on the blog or social media:
www.krugerexplorer.com
www.krugerexplorer.com/blog
www.instagram.com/krugerexplorer
www.facebook.com/krugerexplorer
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