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Simon Seward/Notes/Personal/Kruger 2023

Two vehicles on a sand track through dry mopane, Kruger 2023, from above

Kruger 2023

Category
Personal
Year
2023
Where
South Africa
Route
Johannesburg to Pafuri and back, five stops
Vehicle
Toyota Hilux, roof tent
Map of northern Kruger: the route from Pafuri Gate down the Shingwedzi to Letaba and back out through Punda Maria
Map data © OpenStreetMap contributors, Natural Earth, Esri World Hillshade
  1. Pafuri Gate
  2. Crooks Corner
  3. Shingwedzi
  4. Letaba
  5. Punda Maria

From the road

One of our first proper trips into Kruger. I’ve been chasing it ever since.

We went in at Pafuri, up in the north. Four of us in two vehicles. Me and Anna, Dan and Amber. Two weeks of food and firewood in the back, and a good wine cellar with it. You’re spoiled for choice coming out of South Africa.

Camp set up under the trees, roof tent open and the tailgate down
Camp under the trees, Pafuri, 2023

Pafuri is a strange and beautiful corner. Baobabs on the ridges. The fever trees down by the river. Nobody about. We stood at Crooks Corner where the three countries meet and looked at it for a long time. Then east and south, past Shingwedzi, down to Letaba. Small roads. Empty most of the way. Kruger is well run and we wanted for nothing.

A baobab beside the road
A baobab on the road north, Pafuri, 2023
On the bridge over the river
Standing on the bridge, looking at two other countries, Crooks Corner, 2023

We saw hundreds of elephants. We saw lions. We saw wild dogs and I still don’t quite believe it. Two bulls came in closer than we’d planned and made their feelings clear. We sat still and let them finish. At night you lie in the tent and hear all of it going on around you, closer than you’d like, and about as close as you want.

Two elephants throwing dust on the road
Two bulls making their feelings clear, Shingwedzi, 2023
A pack of wild dogs crossing the water
Wild dogs at the water, and I still don’t quite believe it, Letaba, 2023

The hyena came every night. Same one. He worked the edge of camp and paid us no attention at all. We’d chase him off and he’d be back in ten minutes. By the end we were glad to see him.

A hyena crossing the road
The same hyena, working the edge of camp, 2023

Mostly we were together. Fire going. Dinner on. A bottle open and the light going and the four of us laughing at nothing much. I learnt more about Dan and Amber in that fortnight than in the two years before it.

Setting up drinks on the tailgate
A bottle open on the tailgate, 2023
Getting the coals going after dark
It’s not the bush without a braai, Letaba Camp, 2023

We went back north to Punda Maria and out through Pafuri, and spent a few more days outside before anyone would call it finished.

Punda Maria
Punda Maria, the last of it, 2023

We’ve done bigger trips since. I still measure them against this one. And we go back to Kruger every year.

Photographs, 36
Two bakkies with roof tents pitched at campMorning in the roof tentThe other vehicle ahead on an empty tar roadAn elephant herd moving through the mopaneKudu and buffalo horns set among the aloesOn the roof rack, waiting for something to moveSetting up drinks on the tailgateCoffee at the camp kitchen, looking out over the grassTwo of us outside the camp kitchenA red-billed hornbill in the leaf litterLooking out of the roof tentGetting the coals going after darkCoffee at the camp tableA beer above the riverbedAn elephant beside the road, seen from the vehicleLooking out over the dam from the viewpointThe two of us at the viewpoint at sunsetPassing something across between the two vehiclesElephants crossing the road in front of usElephant off the back of the bakkieA bull elephant facing us with the sun behindA hyena crossing the roadHyenas at the den beside the roadWildebeest bunched in the long grassA giraffe browsing at the treelineWild dogs working along the waterWild dogs resting on the vergeCamp below the koppie, packing upA bull elephant in the mopaneA herd coming down to drinkElephants at the water with the calvesHippos crowded into the shallowsA baobab beside the roadThe fire before the coals came rightOn the bridge over the riverCamped under the baobab