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5th february - 13th march

Overlanding across Afica in our Land Rover Defender: South Africa 1

Andy Lees
2006-05-16 13:55:49

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nelspruit - 5th february

our first taste of south africa and we liked what we saw. shopping malls, food stores, wide boulevards, tropical trees, perfect weather, braais (bbq's) and swimming pools. okay, so this wasn't why we had travelled to africa but it sure is nice to experience after eight months on the road. we spent several days in nelspruit servicing the land rover and unpacking and repacking the back to make room for our new engel fridge; with still over three months to go we felt we could justify this expense. from here on it will be steak and cold beer, not tinned lentils and warm water.

out of nelspruit we took the panaroma route to blyde river canyon, taking in the waterfalls, viewpoints and 'potholes' - huge circular wells in the moutainside - along the way. a heavy rainstorm hit late afternoon and had us running back to the landrover for shelter bringing an abrupt end to our sightseeing. we overnight'd in hazyview in preparation for our early departure to the world renound kruger national park.

kruger national park - 11th february

kruger national park is a vast stretch of wilderness in the far north-eastern corner of south africa. here we hoped to see more lion, cheetah, rhino and perhaps even a sighting of the rare wild dog. we spent six days in the park travelling between the different campsites, watching for game, although the long grass and density of shrubs made sightings difficult. this safari was very different to those we had experienced in the east african parks. tarmac roads run the course of the park and it seemed strange to see game-viewing taking place from the front seats of vw golfs, toyota corrollas, and mercedes c-class rather than the usual 4x4s, trucks or minibuses. the campsites in the southern and central areas are fenced which makes for great hyena watching but takes away the true feeling of bush camping in the wild. but the campsites ...