November in Kruger National Park

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November in Kruger Pre trip and Day 1

We visited Kruger National park for the first time in 2017 as part of our South Africa trip. I enjoyed the whole trip, but it was Kruger that stuck with me. It's like being in a wildlife version of the Disney bubble. Once in the park the outside world fades away. With limited wifi, no television, no chain stores, no stress , no clock watching ( except for gate opening and closing ). Kruger is approximately the size of Wales. In 2017 we stayed at camps in the popular, game rich southern half, venturing into the central section for a few hours. This time we were covering the central and northern sections. Last time we were there in the SA winter, this time it was spring going into summer and I hoped we'd see some reptiles and different , migrant birds. The Northern area has less game than the south, but we had seen plenty on our first trip. As before , we stayed in SANParks accommodation in the park. I chose accommodation on the camp perimeter wherever possible, with our own kitchen and bathroom. The camps we stayed at had restaurants , laundry facilities, petrol stations and shops selling basic groceries and necessities ( wine &#128513

My original plan had us flying London to Johannesburg and then to Hoedspruit, a town not far from the park. We'd do a grocery shop , then head into the park for our first night. With Covid and South Africa being on the UK red list, I'd only booked our refundable park accommodation , I booked our flights and car hire the minute South Africa was moved to the green list with just weeks to spare. Then I found that the car hire was closed when we arrived on Sunday , so cancelled our first night in the park and changed to a b&b in town. Then Virgin changed our flight times making our connection impossible, so I changed our internal flight to the town of Polokwane, and had to cancel our b&b and change the car hire, again. Together with the need for a negative pcr test 72 hours before flying, the stress almost made me cancel the whole lot ( in hindsight I wish I had ).
Our flights were fine ( apart from the disgusting vege curry on Virgin ) and we landed in Polokwane on Sunday afternoon. I'd booked a night at a b&b recommended on the Brits of Kruger Facebook page ( I'm not the only one addicted to the park &#128513and the owner collected us from the airport. He's a pastor, as well as running the lodge and a safari/activity business. He also told us how he'd qualified to do electrical and plumbing work, as he didn't want to pay someone for something he could do himself. A man of many talents . The lodge restaurant mentioned on their website was closed, but we had pizza delivered . I sat for a while afterwards listening to all the night sounds and watching the many millipedes ( shongololos ) busily hunting for their dinner. A thunder storm woke me in the night, but next morning the rain had stopped and after a good breakfast we were driven back to the airport to pick up the hire car.

Avis upgraded us, to a mini van ! Only 3 of us and 2 suitcases, it was a bit ridiculous. I found it a bit cumbersome to drive , though we were up high for sightings, just manoeuvring it had me cursing on occasion.

The drive to the town of Phalaborwa took just under 3 hours. The roads were good but it was misty so we missed the scenery. In Phalaborwa we did our grocery shop ( paying a guy a few rand to 'watch the van ' as is the custom in South Africa. He originally tried to sell me an ostrich feather duster, but I wasn't going to carry that around for 2 weeks 😆, so I paid him to mind the van instead. ) Groceries, cool box and Amarula bought, we headed to Kruger, only a 5 minute drive.

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November in Kruger Days 1 and 2 Letaba


Once we were in the park it was a couple of hours drive to our first rest camp, Letaba.

I decided Letaba was my favourite camp. It has a path along the perimeter fence that I enjoyed walking, with views over the Letaba river . I saw my first snake on this path ( a harmless olive grass snake I'm told) . Lots of vervet monkeys around the camp, as well as a pair of resident bush buck.

Letaba also has an elephant museum displaying the skulls of some of the famous 'tuskers ' who made the park home.

In the evening we went for a swim in the camp pool then lit the braai and chatted to our South African neighbours, they had been searching for scorpions with a UV light( scorpions glow in the light, apparently ) I reminded DH and DS to check their shoes before putting them on in the morning. Luckily the only critter we encountered was a stick insect we named Bruce.

Our bungalow had an outside kitchen with the usual warnings not to leave food unattended and to turn the fridge to face the wall to prevent theft by the monkeys. We were careful to do this and to take our groceries inside the bungalow at night and when we left camp. But we came back from a walk to find shredded paper over the kitchen floor. The monkeys had found and demolished a tube of extra strong mints we had overlooked
Birds visited to collect any crumbs overlooked.

Lots of elephants in the Letaba area. We spent quite some time watching them play in the rivers.

We had 2 nights at Letaba before moving on to our next camp.

[CrispyA]

Amazing photos - what a fantastic place to visit

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Shingwedzi

Our next camp was Shingwedzi 4.5 hours north, we crossed the Tropic of Capricorn on the way.

It was a rather boring drive, lots of Mopani trees and areas that had been scorched black. Controlled burns are carried out all over the park to encourage new growth. Not much to see, but plenty to hear. The noise of the cicadas was deafening in places.

The chalets at Shingwedzi face inwards around large open squares. We enjoyed sitting outside watching the birds and the antics of the baboons who came into camp at gate opening, they spent their days trying to get into the rubbish bins ( a simple but effective design prevents this ) and raiding the outdoor kitchens for food left unattended. They are bigger and more intimidating than the monkeys, but a shout and movement towards them had them running . Just before gates close a ranger rounds them up and chases them out of camp.

I saw my second snake while sat outside our chalet. A thin, bright green one that disappeared under the building as I reached for my camera. I tried to identify it from pictures , it looked similar to both the boomslang, highly venomous ! and the green water snake which is harmless. Without a photo I'll never know.

The scenery around Shingwedzi was lush and green , a nice change from the scorched Mopani vegetation.

November is the end of spring/beginning of summer in South Africa , the impalas have their lambs and there were plenty of cute new borns
to see, the further north we went the more birds we saw, lots of bee eaters, hoopoes and others I hadn't seen before .

Temperatures reached 42 Celsius on a couple of occasions.

The best time to see animals is early morning or evening when it's cooler, but I couldn't get husband and son out of bed early enough to make a difference. So I did a few solo drives. My first was from Shingwedzi , along the scenic Red rocks route. Sure enough I saw lions AND a leopard. The latter crossed the road infront of me and walked down the side of the van, too close to get a photo and by the time I'd maneuvered it into a better position the leopard was in the undergrowth. That was the first time I cursed our upgrade.

We saw possibly the same leopard on a night drive , but it was too dark to get a photo. More swimming in the evening. The bat boxes are near the pool and we watched dozens of bats flying overhead as we swum. There were also lots of pretty little birds drinking from the waterfall leading into the pool, but I didn't have my camera with me.

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Punda Maria

After 3 nights in Shingwedzi we moved to our 3rd camp, Punda Maria, the northernmost camp. Least favourite as far as accommodation goes. The chalets are arranged in rows so your view is of the back of the chalet infront. The drive up to the top chalets was very steep , narrow and one way and the allocated parking space obviously not intended for something the size of the van. I was glad of the reversing camera. When guests arrived at the next door chalet I happily relinquished the parking space and parked in the public carpark at the bottom of the hill.

Each chalet has a table and chairs on the path outside the door only just covered by the roof overhang. I was sitting outside in a thunderstorm watching the lightning and had to climb over the table to get inside without being drenched. No room for a braai outside the chalet, you have to go to a communal area if you want to braai. We ate at the restaurant or cooked inside.

Though I wasn't keen on the camp I did like the northern area. We drove up to Crooks corner where Mozambique, Zimbabwe and South Africa meet at the Limpopo river.

I loved all fever and baobob trees ( we saw a baobob in flower ) we also saw more birds that we hadn't seen on our first trip.

We did a sunset drive with a ranger at each camp. Our vehicle at Punda Maria was full of birdwatchers with huge lenses on their cameras. They were excited to see the pennant winged nightjar, which I'd never heard of , but our stay coincided with the brief period when this rather nondescript little bird grows long, streamer type feathers from it's wings which it uses to attract a mate. We were lucky enough to see it doing it's courtship display , but I wouldn't base my holiday around dates it may fly like some of the enthusiasts were doing.

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Mopani


We headed south again for our next camp, Mopani . More endless Mopani vegetation and very little to see. On a gravel road we encountered hundreds of rain frogs, little round blobs of frogs who hopped out of the way at the last minute. I drove as slowly as I could worried I was going to squash them .

A lot of tortoises as well, they drink from surface water on the road..On the tar roads I saw 2 more snakes, both silver grey and moving too fast too identify.

Mopani camp is on a hill overlooking the Pioneer dam. Our chalet was the most luxurious of our accommodation , the deck overlooked the water and the braai area, perfect for watching birds, large boulders were ideal sunbathing spots for all types of lizards

We had a resident bat who we heard, but never saw

And it had a TV! Unfortunately it wasn't working. Reception sent men from maintenance and they spent an hour or so on the roof fiddling with the satellite/ aerial getting it working just in time for husband to watch the Liverpool football match .

Meanwhile I had lit the braai , only for the wind to immediately pick up and send showers of sparks flying into the surrounding vegetation. Cue me running out with saucepans of water to douse the flames. Sausages don't taste so good cooked indoors.

On our last night at Mopani I was sitting out on the decking when a woman from the next door chalet came to invite me to see a spotted genet that was posing for photos in their braai area. I grabbed my camera , told DH and we hurried over only to be told ' sorry, a honey badger just scared it away ' , a honey badger AND a genet ! How greedy We got talking and found they had a friend living in a town just a few miles away from us at home. They shared their photos of the genet with me and on the way back to our chalet I saw another genet, it was scampering along the path chasing a large moth, just like a kitten.

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Our penultimate camp was Olifants. We had stopped here for lunch in 2017 when we drove north for the day. We have just one night here to break up the long drive to our last camp.

This is where my trip report ends and the nightmare begins. The title was going to be November in heaven, December in hell , but I didn't want a reminder .


As we pull up outside reception I can hear a buzzing sound that I eventually realise is coming from my phone ( that's what 2 weeks without using a phone does to you ). DS22 is phoning me on messenger from the UK. ' The UK has put South Africa back on the red list, you need to be home by 4am Sunday if you want to avoid going into a quarantine hotel '. It was Friday afternoon, we were over 6 hours drive from the closest airport ( which is tiny and only serves SA ) and approximately 10.5 hours drive to Johannesburg where the direct international flights leave from. I was actually considering this until reception let me use their computer to check for flights and I found all direct flights had been cancelled, making it impossible to fly home in time. The next 48 hours were spent in panic mode.
The next day we left early for our last camp , Skukuza, instead of the planned leisurely drive through prime big cat country we just wanted to get to Skukuza as quickly as possible as being the administrative centre of the park it had wifi. The Brits of Kruger Facebook group had immediately set up a Brits stranded in South Africa group, and there were alot of us in it. It really helped to know we weren't alone.
We had 3 options 1) some were waiting it out in South Africa , thinking it wouldn't be on the red list for long, after all, we were at the epicentre of Omnicron and it was a complete non story in SA. 2) spend 10 days in a non red list country before flying home, but the UK was adding countries to the red list as fast as I could consider them. Several people opted for Zanzibar, but I was worried it would be moved to the red list before our 10 days were up ( it wasn't and in hindsight I wish we had chosen this option) 3) get on the earliest flight home and go into quarantine. By Saturday evening we were resigned to option 3. DS22 was at home looking after our cats, chickens and dog, but he couldn't do it indefinitely. Both DH and myself are self employed so an extended stay in SA wasn't really an option.
Sunday morning we spent our last few hours trying to enjoy the park before our flight from Skukuza to Johannesburg ( we were originally flying home Sunday evening ) . On arrival in Johannesburg we booked into a b&b near the airport, along with a dozen other Internationals also stranded. Once Virgin had put us on a flight on Wednesday, we then had to book the quarantine hotel. You couldn't book unless you had a flight, but you couldn't see hotel availability until you'd paid for the hotel. So many people were buying flights then finding there was no availability for that date, I spoke to one woman who had bought 3 flights. You had to book the hotel online, but the site wouldn't allow the 3 of us in 1 room. DS has Aspergers and DH suffers from anxiety and depression, seperate rooms , as well as being double the already extortionate cost( £2285 for the first person, £1430 each additional person ), were out of the question. I met a British/ SA couple who were also stranded, she very kindly lent me her phone and International Skype account, I spent over 6 hours calling the 'help ' line only to be hung up on or told to use the online form. The whole situation was a disorganised farce.
We arrived back at Heathrow on Wednesday evening . We had to show a negative pcr test result before boarding the plane, once in the terminal we waited for hours, packed like sardines. We were allocated the Holiday inn, Gatwick worth, later on others were sent as far as Milton Keynes and Birmingham. We were lucky with our hotel, the food was quite nice , the window opened a couple of inches and the staff I spoke to were pleasant, but we were not allowed out to exercise. But as we had to do a pcr test again on days 2 and 8 with a positive result restarting the countdown, outdoor exercise with security escorting us along the corridors wouldn't have been worth the risk anyway . 10 days the 3 of us in one room is not an experience I ever want to repeat. Still, through the Facebook groups I realised it could have been worse. Some of the hotels allowed daily exercise outside but served food that was dire. Or had windows that couldn't be opened. Or had staff that were careless of the inmates safety. But at least it stopped the spread of Omnicron ... 🙄
4 days after we were released South Africa was taken off the red list and quarantine ended.