Kruger National Park: A wild experience

It is difficult to put into words the awe inspiring feeling you get when faced with a wild Africa animal. No fence. No zoo warden. No warning signs. Whether it is a gnarly faced wart hog or a huge tusked elephant, it does not compare to any discovery channel documentary or zoo experience.

Warthog: One of the "Ugly Five"

 The difference, I believe, is the luck involved. The animals in Kruger are completely wild, you drive along dirt roads for hours, watching, hoping, and then, all of a sudden a 3 meter high mammoth of an elephant pushes his gigantic head out from the trees just feet from the car you are sitting in. With excitement you grab your camera, marvel, not knowing what will happen next. That is the beauty of the safari. You never know what you will see. And at a park like Kruger, you will see a lot. 

 At Kruger National Park anyone can drive there own safari. We spent three nights in the park, camping in campsites surrounded with electric fences and barbed wire. Baboons however were still rampant through some of the parks.

 The first animal we came across was the ostrich

You can tell it's an ostrich by how it is.

If you look closely you can see a zebra hiding in the grass 

We spent two days driving the park. And we put in work! from 6:00 am, when the gates opened, until 5:30 pm when they closed, we were out driving the park. And it was worth it. 

Ignore that zebra butt in the background 

In the Safari world there is the concept of "The Big Five": Lion, Elephant, Buffalo, Leopard and Rhino. We were lucky enough to see all of these animals (though only a quick glimpse of a rhino, I'll be honest it might have been a big grey rock but don't tell Dad)

I'm not sure why the buffalo is part of the big five...I'm pretty sure it's just a cow...

 Baboons are the bane of my existence in Africa. Signs are everywhere in South Africa to not feed the baboons. Who ever started feeding baboons in the first place and warranted a sign like that?! Needless to say, this is the one cute photo I have of the baboons. I don't want to start spreading too much monkey hate. 

One of the highlights of the trip was seeing a Leopard (one of the hardest animals to spot of the big five), drag a dead impala across the road in front of us and into the trees. 

We never saw a pride of lions as we hoped. But this lioness was basking in the sun and scaring off warthogs.

 The Crocs (below) were always hard to spot.

These hyena pups were adorable. Saw them for the first time at the end of our trip. 

After two days in Kruger we were overwhelmed with how much we saw. By the second day we were laughing because we were actually getting a bit sick of zebras. There were huge herds of up to a hundred, they were getting in the way of the other wild life! 

Kruger was magnificent because you never knew what would happen next. You could go for an hour and not see anything, and then all of a sudden a giraffe and her baby pokes her head out from a tree and runs in front of you. Those are unforgettable moments. Kruger was an unforgettable experience.