Kruger Park Safari

DECEMBER 2022
Sunday 11th : Johannesburg to Crocodile Bridge
Monday 12th : Crocodile Bridge to Skukuza
Tuesday 13th : Skukuza
Wednesday 14th : Skukuza
Thursday 15th : Skukuza to Satara
Friday 16th : Satara to Kuthaba Bush Lodge

Itinerary

Day 1 : 475 kms (295 mi)
Sunday 11th December 2022

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 2022

Your trip to Skukuza will be in an Open Safari Vehicle (OSV) and you’ll be picked up at 06h15.
I’ve included these vehicles for the first couple of days to get close to Africa and your new surroundings.
The sounds and smells of the bush are more noticeable and the sightings of animals are not restricted to what you can see from your car. This allows for great photo opportunities.

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 camp.

You should reach Skukuza by roughly midday.

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

Your one roomed bungalow which has a river 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 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 and Day 4 : 0 km (0 mi)
Tuesday 13th & Wednesday 14th December 2022 : 

Tuesday and Wednesday could both be very similar!
You have an option of a guided, open safari vehicle on both days, which if you choose, will pick you up at 06h15!

The early start is to maximise the time during the best part of the day for game viewing, as animals are at their most active.
Diurnal animals get ready to face the day and nocturnal animals, such as hyena, return to their dens after hunting during the night.

Your drives on both Tuesday and Wednesday can either be –
•  an all day (10 hours) drive, or
•  just a morning (6 hours) OR an afternoon drive (4 hours).

Although there’s no rush to book, these drives are in demand and we do need to make a decision by, let’s say, early November!
I would suggest ‘all day’ for both days, but you might prefer only one day, and then a mix of the above options for the second day – it all depends on how tired you’re likely to be, and how much time you want to spend game viewing!
It’s a long day in the open air!

There will be no schedule on these drives, except pickup and drop off times, and no two drives will be the same.
You could stop at waterholes, viewpoints or picnic sites.
Breakfast and lunch (both for your own account) will be in a restaurant/take away at a picnic site or at another camp.

I’d be happy to take you out on a late afternoon drive in the vicinity of Skukuza if you’d like.
This is your trip, and I’ll customise the arrangement to whatever you’d like to do.

We’ll make a braai again tonight, and eat under the stars.

Day 5 : 92 kms (57 mi)
Thursday 15th December 2022

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 night is a recently renovated, air-conditioned, single room rondawel with your own en-suite bathroom and a kitchenette.

Day 6 : 531 kms (330 mi)
Friday 16th December 2022

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.

After that, we drive through rural Africa on the edge of the Bushveld Igneous Complex, known to contain the world’s richest ore deposits and the world’s largest reserves of platinum-group metals.

Further west we join the N1 highway – the main north/south Zimbabwe/Cape Town arterial route, before heading west once again, and onto Kuthaba Bush Lodge.

Accommodation

• SATARA
• DAY 5
• 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)

We’ll spend our first night in this small, well shaded Camp in the south-east corner of the Park.
It started as a ranger station in the late 19th Century and opened as a Rest Camp in 1931.
It takes its name from the Crocodile River that flows in front of the camp, and the old Selati Railway Bridge – built in 1927, that despite being damaged by floods in 2000, still stands in front of the camp.

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

NO restaurant
NO swimming pool
NO banking ATM facility

SKUKUZA REST CAMP    (Days 2,3 and 4)

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
ATM banking facility
Golf course

Skukuza has three restaurants.
The Cattle Baron Skukuza, the Kruger Station and the Amukelekani.
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.
The Amukelekani is in the Skukuza Safari Lodge.

SATARA REST CAMP    (Day 5)

Unlike the other camps in the park, which are built either on hills or next to a river, Satara is laid out on the open grasslands that dominate the area.
It is Kruger’s third biggest camp as well as being a very popular camp – for a reason!
It is situated in an excellent game viewing area, on wide expanses of Savanna grassland.

Your bungalow for the night is an air-conditioned single room rondawel with your own en-suite bathroom and a 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

NO banking ATM facility

Satara Rest Camp Restaurant
The Cattle Baron Satara has both an inside and outside seating area.

Weather

The eastern side of the Kruger National Park 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.

Visitors going on night drives during winter will require warm clothing.

Route Map