Jeannietx

Did you look at Sabi Sabi?

chillg8r

Not yet, but I will. Thanks.

johan rebel

I'll spare you a long story, but the properties Sabi Sabi traverses are not ideal from a game viewing perspective. They are only joined at the hip, so to speak, and Lisbon (the name of one of the farms traversed, the other is called Shaw's) is a cul-de-sac, albeit a big one.

Johan

chillg8r

Johan:

Can you share with me your recommendations for places to stay and a couple of routes if I chose to self drive for a couple of days and stay in a lodge with guided drives in the NP? I'm not sure if we will make it to Kenya or Tanzania now due to the cost.

Thanks.

M

johan rebel

You can self-drive in the Kruger NP and stay at any of the large number of public rest camps. These camps also offer guided morning, evening and night drives.

Should you wish to combine this with a private lodge, you could opt for one located in a concession in the Kruger NP itself. This is convenient for the obvious reason that they can all easily be reached without leaving the park. The downside is that none of them are budget lodges. The least expensive are probably Rhino Post / Plains Camp, or Shawu/Shona in the Mpanamana concession. There may also be specials from time to time.

Alternatively, the KNP can be combine with any lodge in the contiguous private reserves (Sabi Sand, the Manyeleti, the Timbavati, the Klaserie, Balule) as well as those in the immediate vicinity (Mthethomusha, Karongwe, etc.). These are all within an hour or two of the nearest KNP gate.

The choice of lodge will depend on your budget and preferences.

As for routes in the Kruger, I can come up with various options, but would for starters need to know when (September?) and for how many nights. Any suggestions will come with the caveat that once there you will have to keep your ear to the ground, so to speak, and be prepared to change plans as circumstances dictate.

Johan

chillg8r

Thank you.

Do you have any recommendations with respect to the public rest camps? I've seen Olifants and Skakuza mentioned but we are certainly open to any of them. Right now my thoughts are to stay for 4 nights in the park and, based on your recommendation, can stay in one place or visit two camps. We prefer a clean space with a good bed and a private toilet. We do not need 4 star luxury but we are not campers either. Is 1,000 ZAR doable? We can spend more if its much better or if thats what it costs to be comfortable. This is a special trip for us so we don't want to "cheap out" too much.

We are very social people so keeping our "ear to the ground" will not be a problem. :~)

We are targeting September 1st at this point but that is fluid so we can wait for routing. I just would love to be prepared, once I land the flights, to be able to reserve some rooms asap as I understand they book early.

Thanks for everything.

johan rebel

My pleasure.

September is early spring and at the same time the end of the dry season (although rains occasionally come early, there's no way of knowing), so for a first-time visitor to the KNP I would recommend camps in the south, which is generally richer in game. If you want a camp with all the amenities (i.e. a restaurant and shop) then you will have to pick one of the larger ones: Berg en Dal, Skukuza, Lower Sabie, Satara or Olifants. I wouldn't go farther north than the latter. Otherwise Crocodile Bridge is a good option in the very south, they have walk-in tents with a fridge and an en suite bathroom as well as chalets. In the central area Tamboti offers similar accommodation.

If you start in Kruger and then continue to a private lodge in the Timbavati or the Klaserie, it makes sense to start in the south (Crocodile Bridge or Lower Sabie), and then move to either Satara or Tamboti, which are conveniently close to Orpen gate. From that gate it is about an hour and a half to the Timbavati/Klaserie control gate.

ZAR 1,000 is not doable if you are looking for a proper private lodge in a large reserve with a full complement of game. You do get small fenced reserves with a limited amount of game that are less expensive. In the Timbavati/Klaserie you could consider Gomo Gomo, Nthambo, African on Foot and Shindzela, all of which I'm familiar with. Kambaku and a few of the others might also be reasonably priced, at least from time to time if they are running specials.

Johan

chillg8r

Great info, thanks Johan. if I can, indeed, begin my journey on or about the 23 August then I could start in Kruger and then go to Capetown. (Instinctively I was going to just start in the cape and work my way up) That might help insure that we visit Kruger during the end of the dry season. In about 3 weeks I can begin reserving flights, at that point I will get further into the details of the camps. Maybe we will just book 4 nights in Berg en Dal, Skukuza or Lower Sabie?

Thanks agin. I'll keep the thread updated.

johan rebel

Any of these will work, but keep in mind that Berg en Dal is in the far southwestern corner of the park. Very mountainous and pretty, but it pretty much restricts you game drives to the southern fifth of the KNP, unless you want to spend the entire day on the road.

Skukuza is the largest and busiest rest camp in Kruger, for that reason alone I would personally avoid it.

That leaves Lower Sabie as the best option. You can head out in four different directions, and always return to camp by a different route.

Johan

chillg8r

Great, thanks. I'll look into lower Sabie for 4 days or Berg for 2 and Olifants for 2? With these tips I'm sure whatever I can arrange will be awesome! 😎

johan rebel

2 for 2 will allow you to spread your game drives over a greater area. Do Berg and Dal first if possible, Lower Sabie is closer to the vast majority of the private reserves, and thus more convenient if you are heading to one of those afterwards.

Johan

chillg8r

Thanks. I'll post what finally gets arranged. I wish I could make all of the arrangements today! Haha

lovetravellingoz

I have just finished my 6 week trip in southern africa.

We finished with 1 night in Blyde River Canyon for the views, but the 5 previous nights were:

* Elephant Plains inthe Sabi Sabi area to taste a private establishement
* 2 nights at Olifants in one of the cliff edge cabins (best views in Kruger!)
* 2 nights in Lower Sabie

A few observations

All in all if you want animal spotting then Lower Sabie is a great camp. It has all the facilities and the river adjacent to it has many on dispaly. From my cabin and/or the riverfront restaraunt in the river we watched giraffe, hippos, crocodiles, elephants, buffalo, zebra and others.

On drives we saw two mating lions within 5m of us!!!!...and another pride of 6 lions the next day, rhinos on 6 occassions right next to road(note this was on the less travelled gravel roads and not the busier sealed roads) and a wide diversity of animals. Late in the day seemed to have a lot more animal activity than the early morning when we were there.

If you can only visit one rest camp then I would strongly recommend Lower Sabie.

Olifants We had booked a cliff edge cabin and the views were to die for. You can also see the view from the restaurant and so an option is to lunch there (note it is a long, long way at 50kmphr from Lower Sabie).

However game was noticeably thin on the ground near Olifants. I would therefore not make it your only rest camp.
One highlight though was watching from my balcony through my binoculars 6 hyena with a fresh impala kill.

Satara
I did not stay there, but we used it as a tea/ toilet stop. It has a smaller, but adequate, restaurant with an artificial waterhole to attract game (only impala when we were there). It is more basic and less pretty camp than the other two.

However the Satara camp is located in and near more of an open plains area than the other two camps. This attracts more Zebra and we also saw Wildebeest which we did not see further south.

However most people want to see the big cats, and there was a lot of cat activity reported in the Satara Region. The two days we called in the game spotting boards recorded numerous sigthings of lions, cheetahs and leopards. The surrounding open plains full of game is most likely why, and the open plains making it easier to spot activity.

We spotted 3 male lions within 10m of the road choping on a Kudu with 3 jackals circling them. We also spotted a leopard in a tree, but say 30m away.

If I went back I would use Satara for a night or two due the cat activity.


The Big 5. Driving from Lower Sabie to Oilfants, when we swapped camps, we spotted the Big 5 in the course of our half-day drive. This included watching 6 lions hunt (unsuccessfully) about half-way between Satara and Olifants. It made for a great sight as the herd of animals that they were attempting to encircle included buffalo, 3 rhinos, zebras, kudu and impala!


Elephants Plains was nice for a change, a contrast and a touch of luxury. But while we did see a leoprad at only 5m away, the number of animals was noticeably a lot thinner on the ground than at Lower Sabie.
If I return to the region I would just stay at the SANPARK rest camps.

lovetravellingoz

PS: We flew in to Skukuza and picked up our rental car there.
So we checked out the rest camp and bought some supplies there. It is a very big camp. It is an easy drive to Lower Sabie from there and game viewing was good along the way. We even spotted 3 female lions along the way.

The game viewing was more plentiful nearer Lower Sabie though.

johan rebel

If you are referring to the area in the direct vicinity of the camp, i.e. north of the Olifants River, then this is at the southern end of the Mopane belt that covers the basalt plains all the way up to the Luvuvhu River. It is dominated by a single tree species (Mopane) and does not generally support high concentrations of game, except elephant (seasonally) and along rivers with well-developed riverine gallery forest (i.e. the Shingwedzi River). In the austral winter river roads are the place to look for animals.

South of the river, for almost two-thirds of the way down to Satara, the area consists of Olifants Rugged Veld, which supports higher concentrations of game, especially grazers, during the austral summer.

Around Satara, lions are not only numerous, but the rivers often form handy territorial boundaries. These territories are not set in stone, but the Timbavati picnic site, for example, is at times disputed by up to four different prides. The roads that run along the Timbavati, N'semani, N'wanetsi and Sweni rivers therefore tend to be rather good for lion sightings, even though the surrounding areas mostly don't consist of open plains.

Johan