Kruger Park and Work Visa

March 24

Last weekend we went into the Kruger National Park. It's only an hour's drive from Nelspruit. What a wonderful place! It was like an enormous zoo, the only difference that it was the people who were in the enclosures – our cars!

We stayed at Skukuza. Which is the largest of the "camps". It is not really a camp but a little village in the park.

We had a 'Semi-Luxury' cottage. The emphasis was very much on the semi rather than the luxury. But it was fine for the night and it was right on the riverfront.

Mrs Warthog on her way to the shops. The family were trailing behind at this point.

From our cottage we could see elephants feeding on the far side of the river and while we watched about 12 of them, including some little wee ones, decided to swim across the river and feed about 5 metres in front of us. Quite magical really.

We went on one organised sunrise drive but we saw the most animals when driving by ourselves; elephants, giraffes, buffalo, impala, lions, zebras, hippos, crocs the list goes on. What we didn't see were rhino, leopards, porcupine, aardvarks etc, etc. Great, that means we will have to go back sometime to see them!

 A baboon leapt onto the car.

This is his hand on the windscreen!

Lots of Impala everywhere. They are very beautiful animals with fine features and shiny coats.

Zebra and Wildebeest often move around together. The Zebra like long grass so they munch it down for the Wildebeest, who like it shorter.

Not rocks, hippos! A family of 6. We watched for 10 minutes but they barely moved.

This young lady was browsing a thorny acacia by the side of the road and didn't seem at all worried about us watching.

I will be back in Tauranga over Easter.  There are problems with Andrew's work visa. It should have been all sorted before we came over but the company didn't get their A into G in time. Now it seems the best way to get things done is for me to come back and submit the application for both of us. The company don't want him to leave cause there is too much work! It may still turn out that the SA embassy refuse to allow it while Andrew is still in South Africa. In that case he would also have to come back. We will cross that bridge if we come to it.

Love

Pam