Marloth Park & Kruger National Park (KNP)

For a holiday from a holiday (Jo’burg) from a holiday (overlanding), Dad and I went to Marloth Park – a game reserve adjacent to Kruger that doesn’t have any dangerous animals (cats, elephants, hippos, etc.) so it’s (relatively) safe to walk or ride around.

We rented a thatched house (with a lookout over the river)

that can sleep eight. The only other resident we had whilst we were there, however, was a warthog, who came every night to sleep on our porch!

Typically warthogs live in burrows – either their own or those of aardvarks or porcupines – but evidently this one likes a good, solid front porch. He left one hell of mess though.

Other visitors to our garden included more warthogs, a kudu, and impala. And when walking around the park, we saw zebras grazing about a metre away from us,

some warthogs fighting,

and hippos in the Croc River with buffalo and kudu on the shores (through the KNP fence). You can hear the hippos at night too – a sound which Keith manages to imitate very well ;) On our last night, we were lucky enough to have elephants munching on reeds right in front of our place.

We also spent a day in Kruger and saw amongst other things: a pack of hyaena scampering up a road,

a pride of lion lazing under a tree, lots of elephant,

two sightings of white rhino, a lake full of hippo,

a lone male baboon, cheeky vervet monkeys,

crocs basking in the sun, a large snail, a monitor lizard,

a leopard tortoise,

dung beetles rolling dung,

grasshoppers,

a green mamba (deadly) slithering across the road, warthog,

buffalo, wildebeest, klipspringer, waterbuck,

tonnes of impala,

and giraffe. Interestingly, the name giraffe is derived from the Arabic word ‘xirapha’ which means ‘one who walks swiftly’ – quite apt as I found out at full gallop they can reach speeds of up to 60 km per hour! So yet again, we didn’t see the elusive leopard, but saw the rest of the Big 5 and much more.

At the Kruger camps we visited, there were noticeboards listing sightings of all the Big 5 except for rhino due to the high incidence of poaching.

Lower Sabie camp also has a wall filled with poaching photos which are truly gruesome. It’s a massive problem here though they’re trying to fight it as best they can. At the camp shops, you can do your bit to help by buying scarves and other products by Rhino Force which helps fund anti-rhino poaching.

From when I lived here, I still remember a few of the birds and of the ones I know, we saw: red and yellow hornbills, ground hornbills, mouse birds,

ox peckers, guinea fowl, vultures, lilac breasted rollers,

African fish eagle and starlings.

But perhaps the most interesting bird was this one that was hitching a ride around the waterhole on various hippos’ backs!

So after my holiday from a holiday from a holiday, it was back to Jo’burg and then onto Cape Town where I will soon meet up with the truck family again! (Some of you may not know yet that I decided to extend my trip all the way up to Egypt…you only live once right?!)