The next day we spent driving across country towards the Kruger National Park in the north east of the country and by the evening we had managed to reach the outskirts of the park. We were tempted to head through Swazliand to get there, but thought better of the idea after 8 hours driving.... We had a very hot, uncomfortable night in the campsite of the the ´Numbi´ hotel in Hazyview just outside the park gates; Uncomfortable due to the temperature but also the fact that my thermarest seems to have sprung a leak resulting in me having to sleep on the mud. To top that off, one of our tentpoles split during the night. Bugger.
 |  |
We had a great time in the park. Kruger simply blows the smaller game parks we have visited here out of the water in the shear number of animals it contains. By the end of our first day driving around we had seen impala, zebra, giraffe, blue wildebeast, kudu as well as 4 the magic ´big 5´ - a bunch of elephants, some white rhino, buffalos and a leopard - that was fantastic... we were driving along the parks southern-most road, crossing a concrete bridge over a dried uip river bed. There was a few elephant up the river and we were joking about getting out and hiking up to them to take a look. At that point I happened to look down through the window and there he was, staring up at me about 3 metres away. Suffice to say my arm was quickly retracted and window was up in record speed.
 |  |
That night we stayed at the Crocodile Bridge camp. We were a little worried about the accommodation on offer (we hadn´t booked anything) but it was fine - we were put up in a very civilised fixed tent with a fridge, fan and more importantly, proper beds. Fantastic. It did cost us 260 Rand, though.
 |  |
 |  |
By 8am the next day we spotted the missing Big 1 and had spied all the other 4 again - a leopard finishing off his morning kill in a tree with a hyena hanging out below finishing off the scraps, as well as 3 lionesses chilling out in the middle of the road. Strange that the majority of our sightings are on the main tarred roads... you would have thought the animals would try to stay away from the cars not be attracted towards them. hmmm.. maybe they are radio controlled...
 |  |
We met a few people who had been in the park for longer than us and had not seen nearly as much. I guess we have been lucky. One European woman wouldn´t stop saying ´Zis I do not believe!´ when we spoke to her. We had to leave.
Also, pleased to report that at last our Australian police clearance letters have arrived so we were able to get those submitted to the powers that be - now the ball is firmly in their court and we wait...
I was up at 5.30am on our last day in Cape Town for a Shark diving trip I had organised a few days earlier. It didn´t get off to the best of starts as I kept a full bus load of cold, sleepy divers waiting for around 20 minutes whilst I got my stuff together. Well, they were early... After a 2 hour drive to Gansbaai, and then a 20 minute boat trip out to sea I was standing in a cage, freezing my nuts off with a 4 metre great white shark thrashing around about 4 feet away. It was a great experience, although the water was far too cold. It would have been better to have been here a little earlier in the season when the water was a little warmer. ´Dive´is a little misleading.. theye is no diving involved. You simply duck under the water to see the action. Nobody could stay in the cage for very long before their feet froze, but I will never forget those black beady eyes staring at me through the cage bars. To attract the sharks blood is poued into the water and to keep them interested they are baited with a tuna head attatched to a length of rope.
Our shark hung aound doing his thing for around 30 minutes until he made a suprise attack on the bait from below, grabbed it and swam straight down, pulling the rope taught and easily winning the tug-of-war with the 2 boat crew. We stayed on the water for another hour or so, but that was it for shark action for the day. Watching the seals on nearby Dyer Island wasn´t anywhere near as exciting.
On the way back to the Cape Town and our hostal the bus passed through the largest township in the city - a 21 mile wide strip of land covere in woodemn shacks, home to around 1 million blacks. The whole thing looks like a massive fire hazzard, and indeed our driver told us that large chunks of it regularly burn to the ground.
I like Qatar Airlines. After a 9 hour flight from Cape Town to Doha the next day, we were preparing for a night in Doha airport were trying to get used to a hard floor with only a small bag of macadamia nuts and an ipod for use as pillows (we had stupidly checked in everything warm/comfortable that we own). After an hour or so I went in search of some blankets (most other people had just nicked theirs from the plane). Instead of blankets, we were put up in a 3 star hotel for the night! Result! They even brought us a couple of burgers and a bottle of water at 3am as a refreshment.
Comments