Kruger – the low down on what to remember, where to stay, what to do and spotting the Big 5

Kruger National Park

The Kruger National Park is undoubtedly THE place to be when it comes to see­ing game in what should be their nat­ural envir­on­ment.  Even if dur­ing school hol­i­days the num­ber of people enter­ing the park is ques­tion­able, traffic fairly con­ges­ted, and the tend­ency of indi­vidu­als to do silly things like feed hyenas and mon­keys (now a con­stant pest in vari­ous rest camps) a sign that even in the Kruger, humans are encroach­ing on the free­dom of the anim­als within. Despite this Kruger Park is a fant­astic experience.

One of the world's largest game parks, Kruger has received a  myriad accol­ades for nature con­ser­va­tion and, more recently, has begun lower­ing fences that sep­ar­ate the park from neigh­bour­ing reserves, allow­ing the wild­life within even greater access to land and water, and increas­ing the chance to spot game. Continued

Southern Kruger — we review 3 restcamps + hot spots for sighting game

Southern Kruger

The south­ern region of the Kruger National Park lies between the Crocodile River to the south, the Sabie in the north and, in the east, the Lebombo Mountains. Nothing quite pre­pares you for the park's impact, the trees and hills an unex­pec­ted fla­vour to the pic­ture I had of the bushveld as, well, flat (des­pite hav­ing gone to the Kruger as a child).

The south­ern region gets more rain dur­ing the year which trans­lates into more game, shaded by the pres­ence of the Cape chest­nut, coral tree, lav­ender fever berry, and white pear. Continued

Visit a South African National Park for free this week

Kruger National Park

From Monday to Friday this week (13 to 17 September 2010), all South Africans can spend a day at one of South Africa's glor­i­ous national parks without pay­ing an entry fee — thanks to the "Know Your National Parks" campaign.

South African National Parks board (SANParks) will allow all South Africans with valid ID doc­u­ments to enter any park man­aged by it, com­pletely free of charge (three parks are excluded from this free­bie deal, they are Boulders in the Table Mountain National Park, Tankwa Karoo and Namaqua national park and includes entrance fees Continued

Waterbuck in Kruger National Park — photograph

A male water­buck, with his dis­tinct white mark­ing stands on one of the many roads of the Kruger National Park in Mpumalanga.  He stops to pause for a minute and takes a look over his shoulder to see who is watch­ing him.  With his intense but gentle gaze this buck is ready to meet whatever comes into his path ... Continued

Klipspringer in Kruger National Park (photographs)

These are the moments in Kruger that one remem­bers years later. The double take as you real­ise that the strange col­lec­tion of rocks on your right is cam­ou­fla­ging a duo of Klipspringers. Perfect oppos­ites, posi­tioned with unplanned sym­metry, and with the col­ours of the Kruger National Park at dusk — it’s a pic­ture per­fect moment ... Continued

Kruger National Park photographs

Two months ago, I embarked on a 2 week road trip of South Africa, includ­ing a week in our most fam­ous game reserve: the Kruger National Park. This was my first visit, and my mind still boggles at the sheer size of the Kruger park and the mag­ni­fi­cence of its untouched wil­der­ness. I am not a pro­fes­sional pho­to­grapher, but I hope you’ll enjoy this col­lec­tion of pho­to­graphs that I took. We were lucky enough to see the Big 5 twice dur­ing our stay, but it is some of the “other” wild­life pho­tos that most inspires me and reminds me of the won­der­ful hol­i­day we had within our beau­ti­ful coun­try. Continued

Leopard Encounter in the Kruger National Park

Leopard Encounter

Janet & John Wills from Porcupine Ridge Guest House in Sabie had this unex­pec­ted, heart-stopping encounter on a recent break in the Kruger National Park ...

At around 8.30am on 18 December 2009 my hus­band, our adult son and I, left Tamboti Tented Camp and drove east along the H7 towards Satara Camp. We soon came to the turn­ing for N'wamatsatsa Waterhole and decided to check it out. Rounding a corner on the dirt road we saw two tiny leo­pard cubs run­ning across the road with the mother leo­pard fol­low­ing closely behind. The cubs soon dis­ap­peared in the long grass, fol­lowed by the leo­pard. By the time they were about 5 metres from the road we had stopped par­al­lel to them, expect­ing to see the leo­pard quickly dis­ap­pear into the thick bush.

What happened next was the most fright­en­ing (and admit­tedly thrill­ing) encounter we have exper­i­enced in more than 20 years of reg­u­larly vis­it­ing Kruger ... Continued

Leopard by Greg Lumley

SA-Venues.com are proud to present a series of pho­to­graphs by well know Cape Town pho­to­grapher, Greg Lumley. Greg is a freel­ance pho­to­grapher based in Cape Town, South Africa who shoots most any­thing such as  Lifestyle / Editorial, Portraits and Events and Greg is also as a very pop­u­lar wed­ding pho­to­grapher in Cape Town. Greg shares some of his beau­ti­ful pho­to­graphs of South Africa with us ... Continued

Raw. Untamed. Magnificent. The Kruger National Park

Kruger Park

Possibly one of the most fam­ous attrac­tions in South Africa, for loc­als and tour­ists alike, the Kruger National Park offers world class facil­it­ies as well as end­less oppor­tun­it­ies to view and inter­act with African wild­life, par­tic­u­larly the fam­ous Big Five.

The Kruger park itself was estab­lished in 1898, fol­low­ing a twelve year cru­sade to con­serve the Lowveld wild­life by Paul Kruger, from whom the park takes its name.

The Kruger National park spans an impress­ive 2 mil­lion hec­tares of unspoiled bushveld, arche­olo­gical and his­tor­ical sites where early set­tlers as well as Khoi San peoples camped, their faint traces still evid­ent today.

Activities within this National  Park centre around provid­ing the vis­itor with as up close and per­sonal an exper­i­ence of the African bushveld as pos­sible with bik­ing, hik­ing, walk­ing or 4x4 safaris avail­able, all accom­pan­ied by armed and trained guides to ensure your safety while you mar­vel at the diversity of spe­cies. Continued

Introducing Little Jock

Little Jock

Little Jock (at Jock Safari Lodge in the Kruger National Park), over­look­ing the banks of the Biyamiti River is situ­ated one kilo­meter from Main Camp and offers sweep­ing views over the unspoiled Kruger Park Bushveld. Three lux­uri­ous suites offer all the com­forts and amen­it­ies one can expect from a 5-star private lodge.

Guests can relax in the com­fort of the cent­ral lounge designed with large bay win­dows and enjoy both al fresco and indoor din­ing facil­it­ies, while your chef con­jures up tra­di­tional dishes inspired by the nat­ural surrounds.

Your per­sonal game ranger takes care of all your game drives and bush encoun­ters. Whilst not on game drives you can relax next to the scenic pool soak­ing up the sun watch­ing the wild anim­als fre­quent the sur­round­ing bush. Continued