The Kruger National game Park (“Kruger”) as it is known by everyone is an icon in world wild life conservation and tourist experience.

I was a late visitor to Kruger as I actually only went there in 1977 on honeymoon. Although we loved it we also had other things on our mind…

We did not really attend to much to wild life or saw much of game reserves as we had to deal with building a career and a family. Over the years we did however learn to start enjoying the outdoors especially as most construction sites were out in the wild or at least remote. The Ellisras Mogol project was notable for this. In the mid seventies this was still a very wild area with lots of wild life and poaching!

We always had a love for the sea so I guess starting to love nature on land follows logically albeit with a slow transition process.

I had a boss and friend, Johan Bellingan at a small bank in Johannesburg and he was a keen hunter and nature lover. He took us to Pilanesburg and a few other reserves and I picked up quite a bit of information and love from him as he was a very knowledgeable. Sadly he died hunting buffalo in northern Zimbabwe in 1992. (RIP Johan I think of you long time)

We visited Kruger again after 14 years in 1991 with my father and brother and law and families. We stayed at Lower Sabie for four nights. We sadly had no serious cameras only a few “mik and druks”. I briefly visited Skukuza in 1993 as part of a low veld golf trip where we payed the wild Skukuza nine. Little game viewing except during play! It was a golf trip after all!

In May 1994 after our first free election we had a great few days on the Park with Sue;s brother and family. The two families stayed at a resort near Skukuza for a few days with daily trips into the park and then made an epic trip from Skukuza up to Punda Maria in one day. We had the most amazing sightings that day and famously had to be let in five minutes late. What a day. My next and last visit to Kruger proper was in 1995 when I actually ran in the famous Skukuza half marathon. We stayed at Pretoriuskop camp and was luck to see wild dog kill.

Sue and I also visited Mala Mala in 1992 after Johan’s sad passing and I guess the intimate and famous Mala Mala experience did it for us finally. We also visited Nottens in 1997 as part of a Fieldstone off-site and I also spent a weekend with my brother at Dulini in the same area i.e. the famous Sabie-Sand private game reserve. These visits only reinforced my growing appreciation and love or nature. I will never forget the Dulini trip, we saw a pride of lions and two mating early in the drive. We had the traditional drinks sun-downer and one of the guests asked if the lions we saw might be near. The guide confidently said no but a a while later we noticed that the pride in fact had quietly surrounded us. That was quickest land cruiser alighting flight I have seen in my life.

So from 2000 we started diving seriously and very seldom visited game reserves except notable visits to Phinda in 2003, Madikwe in 2007, Nottens again in 2008, Motswari and Kapama in the Timbavati in 2011. As you can see despite the diving we could not stay out of the bush.

In 2012 we went on the epic “Sidney tour” of Botswana with my brother Marius and sister Estelle and their families and Sue and also visited Etosha. Both these trips I have described fully earlier. The bush now started to take over from diving but we still had not not returned to Kruger proper at that time..

In 2013 we did a trip to the Richtersveld and again to a new favourite, Kasane on the Chobe river. I also visited the lammergeier hide at Giants Castle, The Kalaghadi followed in 2014 and in 2015 we did a Namibian and the Masai Mara. In 2016 we again visited Kasane, Gogho hills and Kalizo, the latter for the carmine bee-eaters. The next up was South Luanga in 2017. Again all the tours have been described earlier.

Finally in 2018 we opted to visit Kruger proper as we decided to go local before planned trip to Masai Mara. We booked three nights at Mopani and three nights at Satara. Both venues were most enjoyable and the viewing excellent. I attach some photos below.