Buses, planes and +animals
Tuesday 3/10
Today we left Port Elizabeth to travel to Kruger national park.
It was not easy.
First our bus took us to the airport at Port Elizabeth20 minutes, then we flew to Johannesburg, 60 or so minutes, then took another flight to Nespruit, 45 minutes. From there we took a bus to the entrance to the national park, 1.5 hours, to a place called Crocodile bridge Gate. From there we were picked up by jeeps, 2 of them to take us the 45 minutes to the Shishangeni Logde a private concession.
Not sure what this is.
A giraffe, many of them in the park but each time you see one, it is wow, they are huge and loping and beautiful.
Big crocodile on the beach. We told our driver they are much bigger in Australia.
This is a rhino, again quite hard to see.
Once we do arrive at the lodge about 3.30ish after having left Port Elizabeth at 7, we have a late lunch/snack meal before going to our rooms in preparation for our first game drive this evening at about 4.30 ish. We are told it will only be a couple of hours instead of the normal 3 due to our late arrival at the lodge.
We go out in our jeep with our group and guide, Harold. We see amazing numbers of animals again. Impalas everywhere and zebras and giraffes and bush bucks and some other kind of buck and something like a kudu. I am going to buy the book so I know the actual names for when I write my first book on African fauna for dummies.
Just a note on our group. There are 17 of us with 7 couples and 3 singles, 2 of whom are women. Only one person other than Paul and me are not retired. I think I might be younger than the other person but maybe not. I am definitely not the fittest. One of the women had a birthday while we were in knisna and she is unbelievably fit and able and must be in her late 70s. You should see her climb into the jeep compared to me climbing up into the jeep. I required 1 husband and 1 guide to get me up there. Now that is embarrassing.
The people are all nice and we are most friendly with the 9 people in our jeep. We stay in the same group and jeep for the remainder of the game drives. Of course we have meals etc with the whole group.
And food, it has been great throughout the tour though we have had to get our own a lot of the time. Not here at Shishangeni. When we arrived back from our first night game drive, we had a 3 course meal at about 7pm. There is also a 3 course lunch and breakfast is amazing and then there is high tea about 3.30, cake and coffee. Far far far too much.
tomorrow we are up at 5 for a 5.30am drive.
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