Kruger Park Safari

DECEMBER 2025

Itinerary

Day 1 : 475 kms (295 mi)
Sunday 11th December 2025

We have 2 planned stops en route –

The first is Alzu Petroport – a highway service station with shops and toilets and where you’ll get your first sight of Africa’s wildlife.
Alzu is an animal food producer, and they’ve built this service station on their game farm.

Later on, we stop at Joubert en Seuns Padstal – the Afrikaans name for ‘Joubert and Sons Roadside Stall’ situated on a vegetable and citrus estate, well known for their freshly squeezed orange juice!

We head further east, until, close to the Moçambique border, we turn north off the N4 highway, cross the low level bridge over the Crocodile River and enter Kruger Park at the Crocodlie Bridge Entrance Gate.
The entrance gate is just a stone’s throw from our overnight accommodation.

It consists of an air-conditioned single room with your own en-suite bathroom and a kitchenette.

Once checked in and settled, we can go for a game drive and hopefully get a close up look at some of Africa’s magnificent wildlife.

All the routes we’ll be travelling are in very good game viewing areas, so there’s a good possibility of seeing impala, zebra, warthog, wildebeest, kudu, baboon, waterbuck, giraffe, elephant, monkey and buffalo.
Leopard, lion and cheetah could also be seen!

We return to camp by gate closing time, and as Croc Bridge has a shop, but no restaurant, our dinner will be a traditional meal cooked on a fire – a braaivleis (BBQ), pronounced ‘bryflase’!
You provide your own drinks

Day 2 : 82 kms (50 mi)
Monday 12th December 2025

We leave Croc Bridge after our one night here, and travel north-west to Skukuza – the largest camp in the Park, which is where we’ll be spending the next 2 nights.

Your trip to Skukuza will be in an Open Safari Vehicle (OSV) and you’ll be picked up at 06h15.
I’ve included this vehicle for your first day to get close to Africa and your new surroundings.

Breakfast and lunch, when on the road, are for your own account, and will be in a restaurant or take away at a picnic site or at another Rest Camp.

You should reach Skukuza by mid afternoon.

After checking in and settling down, the afternoon is yours
We can go for a late afternoon drive and see whether we can add to your animal count!

Dinner will be for your own account in one of the Skukuza restaurants.

Your one roomed bungalow which has a view over the Sabie River, is air-conditioned, has an en-suite bathroom and an outdoor kitchen.

Buffalo and hippo are often seen along the river banks in the early morning.

Skukuza has a very good shop which has most things – albeit expensive, that you’ll need in Kruger.

Skukuza has three restaurants, offering a choice for dinner – The Cattle Baron Skukuza has inside seating as well as an outside deck that looks over the Sabie River / The Kruger Station restaurant is situated on an old, disused platform of the Selati Railway / and the untried Amukelekani restaurant in the Skukuza Safari Lodge.

Day 3 : 0 km (0 mi)
Tuesday 13th December 2025 : 

We’ll have an early start to maximise the time during the best part of the day for game viewing, as animals are at their most active at this time.

Diurnal animals get ready to face the day and nocturnal animals, such as hyena, return to their dens after hunting during the night.

The drive will depend on what you’d like to do!
We can be out all day searching for animals, or after the early morning drive we can come back to camp during the heat of the day, and go out again late in the afternoon, when it’s cooler.
We could stop at waterholes, viewpoints or picnic sites.

This is your trip, and I’ll customise the arrangement to whatever you’d like to do.

Breakfast and lunch (both for your own account) will be in a restaurant or take away at a picnic site or at another Rest Camp.

For supper, we’ll head for one of Skukuza’s restaurants (for your own account), or we could make a braai (BBQ) again, and eat under the stars.

Day 4 : 92 kms (57 mi)
Wednesday 14th December 2025

We say goodbye to Skukuza this morning and drive north to Satara Rest Camp and its surrounding open grassland savanna.

There’s no rush, so we can take our time viewing.
The speed limit in Kruger is 50 kph (30 mph), but we average 25 kph (15 mph) whilst game viewing.

We’ll stop at Tshokwane – one of the most popular picnic sites in Kruger, to stretch our legs and have something to eat or drink.

Then on to Satara, which is one of the original camps, with the bulk of the accommodation set out the way camps were designed in the early days – a series of large circles all facing one another!

Your bungalow for the next 2 night is a recently renovated, air-conditioned, single room rondawel with your own en-suite bathroom and a kitchenette.

After checking in and settling down, the afternoon is yours.
Another game drive, a swim in the pool – or whatever you choose!
Satara has a good shop as well as The Cattle Baron Satara restaurant, which has both an inside and outside seating area

Day 5 : 0 km (0 mi)
Thursday 15th December 2025 : 

Your choice as to how we plan our day.

Satara is regarded as one of the best game viewing areas in the park and is particularly noted for the big cats.
Plains game includes Blue wildebeest, zebra, waterbuck, giraffe and the common, and often overlooked, Impala.
Buffalo and elephant are often seen.

Breakfast and lunch (at your own expense).

For dinner, we’ll either dine at Satara’s restaurant (at your own expense) or have a traditional braai (BBQ) under the stars.

Day 6 : 633 kms (393 mi)
Friday 16th December 2025

All good things come to an end, and this is our last morning in Kruger!

Today’s drive is also our longest!

I suggest we pack up and leave early to maximise the early morning hours.
Our 87 kms (54 mi) drive west to Orpen Gate, where we exit Kruger, is once again a drive through a very rich game area and there’s an opportunity to have good sightings until we leave the park.

From here it’s roughly a 2 hour drive back to Johannesburg.

Accommodation

• ◦ 1 bedroom with single beds
• ◦ WC and shower
• ◦ Air-conditioning & ceiling fan
• ◦ Kitchenette
• ◦ Braai facilities

• ◦ NO smoking

Rest Camps

CROCODILE BRIDGE REST CAMP    (Day 1)

You’ll be staying in a traditional rondawel (pronounce ron-daa-vl – a circular hut with a thatched, conical roof), which is typical of the older accommodation in Kruger Park.

Crocodile Bridge Rest Camp is in the Knob thorn/Marula Savannah Ecozone, which is a nutritionally rich Ecozone that stretches north in a thin band, widening in the area around Satara Rest Camp.
This is probably the most important grazing in Kruger and attracts large numbers of grazing and browsing herbivores, which are in turn followed by predators.

Crocodile Bridge Rest Camp Facilities :
Park’s Shop with limited stock (sells alcohol)
Small take-away food section
Coffee bar
Mobile phone reception

SKUKUZA REST CAMP    (Days 2 and 3)

Your accommodation is a single roomed bungalow with an en-suite bathroom and air-conditioning.

Skukuza Rest Camp Facilities
A well stocked Parks Shop (sells alcohol)
Take-away food section
Mobile phone reception
3 x restaurants
2 x swimming pools
Spa
ATM banking facility
Golf course

SATARA REST CAMP    (Day 4 and 5)

Your bungalow for the next two nights is an air-conditioned single room rondawel with your own en-suite bathroom and kitchenette.

Satara is in the Knob thorn/Marula Savanna Ecozone that stretches north, in a thin band, from Crocodile Bridge Rest Camp, widening in the plains around Satara.
It is a nutritionally rich area, consisting of open savanna grasslands, with herds of plains game that are followed by predators – renowned for its lion and spotted hyena.

Satara Rest Camp Facilities
A well stocked Parks Shop (sells alcohol)
Take aways
Mobile phone reception
1 x restaurant
1 x swimmimg pool

Weather

The eastern side of Kruger is only 200m (650 ft) above sea level despite it being more than 100 kms. or so (60 mi) from the Indian Ocean coast.
The resultant summer months (October to April) are wet and hot, and often humid.

The whole of Kruger is in a summer rainfall area, and rain usually falls in short, sharp, heavy downpours.

Winters on the other hand are dry, warm and mild.

Route Map