Monday August 19, 2019
This morning our alarms went off before 5 am, and we were packed up and out the door at 5:30. After a brief interlude on the wrong side of the road with a car coming at us head on in the dark (!!), we remembered we were supposed to drive on the left, corrected course, and made it to Kruger National Park in one piece. We entered the park at Phabeni Gate, closest to Hazyview.
We pulled up to the gate around 5:55 am, and there was already a long queue of cars ahead of us. A lot of folks in cars behind us were getting out of their vehicles and heading further on foot. I got out of our car to join them, and asked someone what everyone was doing. He explained that we needed to fill out a form and obtain our permit in the park office before being able to drive through the gate.
So I filled out the form, and Chad joined me in the office queue once he found a place to park. The whole process seemed quite chaotic and manual, but we shouldn’t have been surprised. In all, it took almost an hour to get through the line to obtain our permit and drive through the gate.
The good news was that as guests of the lodges on the Mluwati concession, we were exempt from the regular conservation fees, and only had to pay the concession fees – and there were no misunderstandings at the gate about that.
Once we were in the park, we generally drove in the direction of Hoyo Hoyo Safari Lodge, but took our time doing it, venturing up and down lots of side roads. We seemed to have better luck on tar roads and worse luck on gravel (surprisingly).
We actually saw a remarkable number of animals on our own including elephants, giraffes, warthogs, zebras, cape buffalo, Not Another Damn Impala, baboons, crocodiles, hippos, and the piece de resistance – a fantastic sighting of a leopard, high in a tree and close to the road.
We ate our boxed breakfasts from Hippo Hollow as we drove, and stopped in at Skukuza to use the rest rooms and check out the park store. But mostly we drove and looked for animals.
We were due at Hoyo Hoyo at 1 pm, since lunch is served at 1:30 pm, and were only a few minutes late (we spotted the leopard as we were en route). This place is beautiful, and as we walked through the open air building and onto the terrace, there were a dozen elephants across the dry riverbed, in full view.
We settled into our rondavels, and then had a big buffet lunch.
Within an hour, tea was served, and then at 3:30 pm we were off on our first ‘official’ game drive.
Unfortunately this game drive did not go so well as the morning we had spent on our own. We saw more elephants, giraffes, buffalos, warthogs and baboons – but that was it. No cats.
It was fun though, driving around in the bush with the anticipation of what could be around any given bend in the road.
We passed by Hamiltons Tented Camp, and got a preview of what our next few days will be like. And we had a great sundowner, with gin and tonics for Chad and I, and Fantas for the kids.
The second half of our game drive was essentially in the dark, and our guide Victor used a searchlight that he swept over the bushveld to try to find more signs of life. No such luck, with the exception of a giraffe.
Today was unseasonably hot in Kruger, with the daytime high reaching 34 C. Victor hypothesized that the heat was keeping the animals at bay, and that after a day of rest today, they should be extra active tomorrow morning. We hope so.
The couple we went on our game drive with have been at Hoyo Hoyo for 2 nights now, and have seen all of the Big 5 on their trip. We hope to follow suit.
Back at the lodge, we were given cold wet cloths to freshen up, and were met with aperitifs at the door.
We were led straight to a lantern-lit dinner on the deck beside a fire in the boma. The elephants were still lurking around.
Dinner was delicious, and the portions were far too much. We stuffed ourselves, and were then led back to our cabins by the staff, since walking around after dark is a no-no. Mallory decided that she would rather sleep with a parent tonight than with Liam, so we did some last minute shuffling of belongings before retiring early for the night so that we can do it all again tomorrow.
Cook Family Travels 