Our flight was leaving Hoedspruit airport at just before 2pm so we aimed to get to the airport around 12:30pm. That meant leaving between 6-6:30am from Letaba as we wanted to the majority of the drive in the Kruger Park. It was cool and drizzling the whole morning. Not great weather for birding but good weather to see predators (or so we hoped).

We stopped for our last morning coffee aside the Olifants River and then at Satara camp for breakfast. It was definitely jersey weather and it made it feel easier to exit the park with weather like that. After breakfast we headed west toward the Orpen Gate. On that road there is a dam near Satara camp and we stopped there for a short time and saw a few new birds for the trip which took our trip total to 213 birds (the new record total for a Kruger trip for us).

After half way to the gate we saw a car stopped and when we asked if they were seeing something the driver told us ‘leopard’. We decided to hang around a bit and we were rewarded for that decision as the leopard came out of the bush and walked across the road. Another really good (last) sighting of a leopard. It felt like a reminder of what you can see in the Kruger and enough to make us think ‘when next’.

We did arrive at the airport at 12:30pm and there was a massive queue to check in. I was wondering what was going on and so went to inquire and found out their computer systems were down and so everything was being done by hand. It was around 1:20pm when we eventually got checked in after having spoken at length to the people behind us about their first time ‘safari’ experience. They were amazed we had done a self-drive for 13 days and kept asking us how we did it, weren’t we scared about getting stuck or having a car breakdown etc. Even once we were waiting to board the guy came past us again and asked us some more questions.

I realised there was no chance we were going to leave on time as there was still a substantial line of people behind us. It was going to take some time before everyone was checked in. We eventually boarded about 30 minutes late and then we just sat on the plane. The pilot said they had to manually do all the calculations and paperwork and it was going to take ‘some’ time. That ‘some’ time ended up being 2 hours. They wouldn’t load the bags until the weight calculations had been done. They must have struggled to find a calculator because it really did take a long time. At one point I was tempted to offer to go and help (because some people might consider me good with numbers – though probably not my staff).

Once they finally did the load calculations, they then couldn’t match the passenger numbers on the manifest to the actual numbers of passengers on board. Turns out they had 10 more on the plane than on the manifest. Eventually the captain said that they were just going to write down your name and seat number and they would use that as the official passenger manifest so that we could take off. So that is what the crew did and then they gave the piece of paper to the ground staff, closed the doors and we took off 2 hours late. It meant that the day was a pretty long travel day but we were pleased to get home around 7pm in the end.

Some closing thoughts on the Kruger Park:

1. Satara is the best camp we stayed at and it seems to be almost all renovated – new appliances, painted, airconditiioners etc.
2. Letaba does needs a maintenance team and upgrading. I would suggest avoiding it until they do.
3. Pretoriouskop was OK but the game viewing around the camp was poor because the bush is so thick. I would suggest only staying there in the winter and not in the summer.
4. Lower Sabie is always good and while the accommodation could do with some rejuvenation, the game life and the view over the river are always worth it.
5. The north part of the park is definitely our preferred place to be. We are reminded again that north is where there are less people, less private safari vehicles and where we are more content. Next time we will just go north.

We felt that we could have stayed another week!

Until next time ..

P & H (with M, O, I for 6 days)