The Big Five

With my parents visiting me for two and a half weeks, I finally had the opportunity to go to the Kruger National Park.  Kruger is one of the largest game reserves in Africa, covering just under 20,000 squared kilometres.  The park is designated as an International Man and Biosphere Reserve by UNESCO.

The 10 hour drive from Durban to Kruger was absolutely worth it!  We spent three nights in the park and had an amazing time.  Two of the rest camps we stayed at were particularly spectacular.  Lower Sabie Rest Camp is located on the banks of the Sabie River.  We stayed in a safari tent overlooking the river nearby a tree that appeared to be full of angry monkeys, who did not stop fighting with each other.  The whole night we could also hear the loud cries of hippos in the distance.

When we went for our coffee in the morning we could see a herd of elephants bathing and splashing in the river.

Our hut at the Olifants Rest Camp was located on top of a hill overlooking the Olifants River.  As this was the dry season the river was largely dried up.  All I could hear in my head was the voice of the National Geographic guy saying, "The river has now dried up.  The animals must fend for themselves.  They must move on in desperate search for water.  The journey will be difficult but necessary..."  Luckily we came prepared.

The Kruger National Park is home to the "Big Five".  This is a term popular with safari-goers, though it was unfamiliar to me until I arrived in South Africa.  The members of the Big Five are: the lion, the leopard, the elephant, the rhino and the buffalo.  The term was coined by hunters, who chose these animals not because of their size, but because of the difficulty in hunting them and the degree of danger involved.  Nowadays, however, seeing the Big Five quickly becomes the goal of most safari-goers.  Including me.  And mom and dad.  In our three and a half days in Kruger we were extremely lucky in being able to see all of these majestic animals in their natural habitat.

1. Lion:  The lion was one of the first animals we encountered after entering the park through the Crocodile Gate Bridge. He was just taking a nap on the side of the road.  There were a number of cars stopped around him and a number of impatient tourists admiring his beauty while hoping he would soon get up and do something exciting.  Mom and dad realized only later that seeing a lion is pretty rare.

2. Elephant:  A few minutes after seeing the lion, we found ourselves surrounded by a herd of African elephants who were crossing the road.  Though this was our first elephant encounter, it was by no means the last.  Not only did we see a ton of elephants in Kruger, we were actually charged at by two of them.  The problem was probably either the threat posed by our scary looking VW Polo rental, or, in the alternative, my dad's insistence to get close enough to the animals to take great photos.  I have a sneaking suspicion it may have been the latter.  African elephants in general are known to be quite aggressive and to be honest my mom was quite terrified every time we encountered one.  The scariest instance was probably on our last day when a herd of elephants had blocked the road.  There was probably close to a hundred of them, including little ones.  We waited patiently for them to move on.  When we thought it was safe for us to pass one of the elephants ran in front of our us, flared his ears, and forced me to drive in reverse for quite a distance before I had a chance to turn the car around and drive back to the main road.

3. Buffalo:  We encountered the third member of the Big Five on the very first morning as well.  We decided to venture off the main road and do a loop, before proceeding to drive to our first rest camp.  As we drove down the dirt road, we found ourselves surrounded by a herd of buffalo.  They were calmly grazing and appeared to be not the least bit concerned by our presence.  In fact I was convinced that buffalo are actually quite gentle animals until I was proven wrong by a bull who charged at us on our way out of the park three days later.

4. Rhino:  We were lucky enough to see both black and white rhinos at Kruger.  Black rhinos are especially difficult to spot as they are solitary and shy and are usually hiding in the bushes.  They are also critically endangered with less than 5,000 remaining in the wild.  My favourite encounter with the rhinos at Kruger was when we went on our sunset drive from the Satara rest camp.  As we stumbled upon a family of rhinos, they got scared of the safari truck and started running.  I'm not sure if you have ever seen a rhino run, but it is too cute and funny at the same time.  Though the rhinos were afraid they were still trying to make sure that the family stayed together and the baby rhino was protected.  As we drove off one of the rhinos stood behind our safari truck and pointed its horn at us, as if to say, "I'll show you who you are messing with.  That is right. Drive away!"

5. Leopard:  I have been hoping to see a leopard since my very first game drive in South Africa, though I had pretty much accepted that it will likely not happen.  A leopard encounter is extremely rare.  In fact Mat said that the safari guide he had over the holidays told him that in eight years of doing safaris he had only seen a leopard twice.  I must admit that in Kruger mom and I spent a lot of time looking at trees searching for leopards but to no avail.  On our last day as we were driving towards the gate, we saw a number of cars stopped on the side of the road.  There was an elephant in the distance and so I assumed that is what everyone was looking at.  Except that the cars were stopped on the wrong side of the road.  So I pulled over beside a small safari truck and asked the driver what they were looking at.  "A leopard," he responded calmly.  Me:  "A leopard?  Where?"  The driver:  "Over there in that tree."  At this point I must have gotten so excited that I don't actually remember what happened next.  I don't even think I thanked the driver.  All I know is that I must have taken close to 50 photos of the leopard in the tree.  But I wasn't alone.  There were a few other cars full of people also ferociously snapping away.  After a few minutes, the leopard gently stood up, jumped down from the tree and calmly walked away.  It was absolutely amazing!

Though I feel that the Big Five quickly become the object of desire for most safari tourists, there were so many other majestic and fascinating animals and birds in Kruger that I was equally excited to see.  Here are some of them: