Dustins Visit to South Africa - Kruger National Park

MPUMALANGA


We flew to JHB on the 28th August, 2010, then hired a car and drove to our place we were staying at for a week called Crystal Springs Mountain Lodge near Pilgrams Rest. After a LONG 41/2 hour drive we got to the place at 21:30pm (30 minutes before reception closed for the night - so I was kind of stressing a bit in the car on the way there). Checked in and then had to drive ALL the way to the end of the chalets (we would a chalet that was right at the end). We found our unit, Dustin unpacked the car and we got ready to call it a day.


Our place was beautiful! The view was absolutely amazing from our balcony. Sunday (29th August, 2010) we just lazed around, sorted out our things, relaxed and just enjoyed our surroundings.


SOME OF THE OTHER CHALETS ON THE OTHER SIDE....

THE VIEW FROM THE BALCONY....

NOT A VERY GOOD PIC, BUT THE SUNSET THAT EVENING....

On the Monday (30th August, 2010) we went to Gods Window, Wonder View (both amazing views), Berlin Falls and Bourke's Luck Potholes (this was my favorite place we went to  for the day, it was absolutely amazing!!). We had amazing weather, and although it was quite a drive to each place enjoyed our day thoroughly. Mpumalanga really is an amazing, beautiful province!!

THE VIEW AT GODS WINDOW....

US AT GODS WINDOW....

WONDER VIEW....

US AT WONDER VIEW....

BERLIN FALLS....

US AT BERLIN FALLS....

BOURKES LUCK POTHOLES....

US AT BOURKES LUCK POTHOLES, WE WERE STANIND ON ONE OF THE BRIDGES - AMAZING!!....

On Tuesday (31st August, 2010), we went to see Echo Caves and The Reptile Park. Echo Caves was amazing, we had a great tour guide (named Elvis :)) and we were lucky to be the only ones on the tour. It was amazing at how informative he was and how much information he remembered about the entire place. We took a few pics of the inside - some very interesting formations and some VERY low and small areas to crawl and duk under.

A FEW PICS OF THE INSIDE OF ECHO CAVE....

Looks a bit like an elephants face...

Stalactites...

Looks like the bottom half of an Ostrich...

Elvis making "music" on the stalactites to show how strong they are...

A very low area we had to walk under...

An upside down Table Mountain... :)

US OUTSIDE THE CAVE AFTER THE TOUR - ALL DIRTY AND VERY HOT!....

We had some lunch after the tour at Echo Caves then went on to The Reptile Park. It was quite a drive to get there, but was good to walk around and see the animals...

Dustin seemed to whisper "sweet nothings" into a lizards ears... Hmmm look at the smile?? LOL

A FEW PICTURES OF THE REPTILE PARK....

Dustin seemed to make quick friends with a donkey there, although he tried to call it like a horse, so I'm not sure if he knew it was a donkey... HAHA... Dustin is very into horses and there was a horse there, when he tried calling it to come over to him it didn't budge, just looked at him to say "who are you!"...

We finished at the Reptile Park and headed for home, we got to get there before the sunset - which was as beautiful as ever, and while we were sitting on our balcony we were surprised by the local warthog...

THE SUNSET....

Wednesday (1st September, 2010) was an interesting day, we didn't have much else to see that was close enough to where we were staying so I told Dustin that I had chosen all the other things to do, so it was now his turn to chose. He chose the Birds of Prey place, so we drove there, and boy did we drive... we drove and drove and drove and drove and DROVE, to finally get there and it was the dodgiest place I have EVER seen!! So we had a good laugh and turned around and went home - a total waste of a day....

On Thursday (2nd September, 2010) was our last day in Mpumalanga and we went to Kruger National Park, it was a 1hour 30 min drive from where we were staying, but it was another awesome day so nothing mattered, we were quite excited to go there and I was really hoping to get a glimpse of Lion and Cheetah - to my disappointment we saw neither :( We did however, get to see a lot of other animals. Kruger National Park is amazing, it was dry and dull but still was breathtaking to see live wild animals so close up.

A FEW PICTURES OF THE ANIMALS WE WERE LUCKY ENOUGH TO SEE....

We saw a ton of buck - they were just everywhere!!

One of the waterholes...

Elephant...

Zebra...

Giraffe, these animals are SO amazing up close...

Warthog...

Buck in a "tug of horns"... :)

An Eland, such beautiful animals...

There is a Mommy Hippo and two babies, and there were a few Buffalo together...

Now this is an interesting story - and Dustin will probably KILL me for writing this but I find it hilarious... We were on our way back to the entrance of the Kruger Park, when a whole lot of cars were suddenly stopped and as we came closer to them we saw they were reversing - I then spotted an elephant in the road and so then knew what the "commotion" was all about. We were in our little red Hyundui Atos car and I was trying to reverse fast enough so that the other cars wouldn't reverse into me, as I was reversing obviously the elephant kept walking in our (all the cars) direction, well Dustin was FREAKING out and shouting at the cars behind us that weren't moving fast enough (for him) and sticking his hand out the window and telling them to "MOVE OUT THE WAY" with his hand movements!! The Elephant by the way was NO where near us by then! Oh the "joy" I got from seeing him so nervous... LOL, anyways it took a while to get moving again, with this huge elephant moving off to the side but moving in and out of the bushes as if he was playing "hide and seek" with all of us. Once he had stopped and stayed in the bushes we were all ready to get going when ANOTHER elephant from a little way up came out onto the road from the opposite side! (can you imagine Dustin's reaction? LOL).

We then moved along - had to stop again when a heard of elephants ran across the road (HAHA), then near the entrance we were stopped by about 5/6 Giraffes on either side of the road, they are SO amazingly tall and elegant when they walk... Dustin said that I should just keep driving and I'll fit through their legs our car was so tiny!! LOLOL...