Today was the start of a 5 day walking safari in and around Kruger national park. Elana, Alex, Garth & Lucky our guides and I were to spend the next few days tracking and hopefully seeing animals in their own habitat.

Day 1
On Safari! Elana and I got picked up from Pretoria and shuttle the five hours east towards the Kruga national park. The safari that I booked is a 'walking safari'. The idea is that you get to wander about in the bush, get to see the animals on their terms, at their level. We were met at the lodge and taken, with Alex the only other person on the trip, out to our camp. We met Garth our guide at the park entrance and he drove us up to camp. On the way we were lucky enough to see a couple of giraffe (Giraffe camelopardalis) from the jeep. Our camp's set in a beautiful location. It overlooks a little waterhole where, as if on cue, a family of warthog were drinking. We went for our first walk after settling into our accommodation ( I was lucky enough to get my own chalet as there were so few of us on this walk). The camp and accommodation wasn't supposed to be like this, we were meant to be sleeping in tents, but that camp is currently being renovated and so we'd been 'upgraded' to this one. None of us complained too loudly! It was very interesting, if a little scary, to be wandering around in the bush where lions, leopard, cheetah, rhino, giraffe and buffalo amongst others lived. We walked as far as a 30 metre high lookout tower that seemed to be used more by baboons than humans judging by the amount of dung that was around.

During dinner I opened the bottle of Uitkyk Cabernet Sauvignon (1997 carlonet) from the Stellenbosch region that I'd bought in Durban and brought up with me. What a great bottle of wine! We'll be up at 5:15 am tomorrow for a walk into the game reserve...

How'd I get those bizarre circular pictures? Simple, I held the digital camera up to a pair of binoculars, using the screen on the back of the camera to frame the piccie. It took a bit of practice, but some of the pictures over the next few pages certainly made it worthwhile. I hope that you enjoy them.

To tomorrow