Africa for beginners. 2 weeks in eastern South Africa

dfinn

Adventurer
Africa? Sure, why not.

Just finishing up going through about 100 gigs worth of photos from our trip to SA. It was a great trip, entirely unlike anywhere else that we have travelled and getting to spend time around the wildlife there is something I won't soon forget.

We landed in Johannesburg Sunday night and early Monday morning we picked up our 79 series Land Cruiser from Bushlore. Bushlore was great to work with, they made everything pretty easy for us including picking us up and dropping us off at the airport. The truck was fully outfitted with an Alu-Cab camper, awning and all the camping gear that we would need. All we had to do was hit the grocery store for some food and water and get on the road. This was by far the most dialed in camping setup that I've used or been around. Full setup from pulling into camp to having tent up, awning out, table out, cooking and a beer in hand was less than 5 minutes. The Alu-Cab stuff is spendy but after using it for a couple of weeks, it's definitely top notch.

lunch break at one of the camps in Kruger
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Our plan was to start at the north end of Kruger National Park spending a week working our way south. From there we would head to the coast and check out an area known as Kosi Bay. Here's our route in google maps:
http://bit.ly/2lZyPrq

For the most part getting around SA was easy. Once I got over driving on the opposite side of the truck and the opposite side of the road things were pretty normal. They highly suggest that you don't drive at night for various reasons and so we stuck to those rules. In the more rural areas there was a lot of animals (cows, donkeys, goats, dogs) in and around the road as well as people.

Kruger National Park is a beautiful, well maintained park with an enormous amount of wildlife. We were not planning to have any sort of a guide for the safari part of our trip and I wasn't sure how hard it was going to be to spot animals but they were everywhere. Except the cats, they were harder to find and mostly only out in the very early mornings or right before sunset. We did go in what people consider the off season. It's their summer in SA. It's hot and it can be rainy. I was also warned about the bugs. It really didn't get that hot except for a couple hours in the very middle of the day and that made for a perfect time to take a break, have lunch, a beer, a swim and a nap in the hammock. The bugs were almost non existent. I think I got less than 5 mosquito bites the whole trip. We did get some rain however. A cyclone hit while we were there and the 2nd half of our trip was pretty soggy. I was really happy to have that Alu-Cab awning at times.

Here's some random shots from inside Kruger:

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wild dogs are pretty rare. they estimate only about 120 total in the whole park. we didn't know it at the time but seeing a pack of about 10 of them was quite a find
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cheetahs are quite rare as well
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rushing to get back to camp before the gates close. the campgrounds inside the park close their gates around dusk, you need to be back before then or else...well, I'm not exactly sure what would happen
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Inside the park it's a mix of paved and dirt roads, some of the dirt roads get a little rough but nothing that you couldn't do with a 2wd truck. If it got muddy you'd probably want 4wd but it seems like they are quick to close the dirt roads if there's heavy rain.

We weren't originally planning on traveling through Mozambique but after looking at the map it seemed like it might save us a considerable amount of driving to cut through Mozambique in order to get to Kosi Bay. I won't go into it too much but we got to the border and it was really sketchy on top of them wanting quite a bit for visas to enter the country. We decided to stick to SA and take the long way around. We later found out after talking to some locals that we made the right call, apparently the roads through that part of Mozambique are in really bad shape, full of corrupt cops and crime as well as including a river ferry that was broken down and not running.

On our way from Kruger to Kosi we spent a couple days checking out the Sabie River valley. We really liked this area a lot, unfortunately this is about when the rain hit and it really poured most of our time there. We did go check out a couple of waterfalls which were much larger than normal.

Lone Creek falls. As soon as the falls came into view you were instantly drenched from head to toe from the spray coming off of it
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Kosi Bay is a really interesting area. It's fairly remote and very low key. The beaches were beautiful and the water was warm. Apparently this area has a pretty high shark population as well as also known for having crocodiles and hippos in the water at times so swim at your own risk. I didn't see any of those 3 things and I spent a good amount of time in the water. I had brought my fly fishing gear with me and had planned to do some fishing. Normally this area is known to have some really good fishing, including a large population of GTs, one of my favorite saltwater fish. It had been unusually hot just before we got there and the cyclone hit just as we got there so the water temps went from warmer than normal to quickly colder than normal, really throwing the fishing off.

We camped at Utshwayelo, a nice little spot just a short 4x4 road away from the beach. There are lots of beaches to explore in this area. It can be a bit hard to navigate at times because it's a spaghetti bowl mix of sandy double track roads leading out to them but if you can find the right road it will lead you to some places like this, which we had completely to ourselves. Some beaches do require paying a small fee and getting a permit, others you can drive right up to without needing anything.

we met another couple from Vancouver traveling in a Bushlore vehicle who were keen to explore the coast
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pictures always make it look flatter/easier than in real life but we needed both front and rear lockers to make it up this
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and then at the top looking down into the other side, it didn't look like any vehicles had been this way in a little bit, just cow traffic
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After a few days exploring it was time to head home. We intentionally played it a bit safe on this trip to get a feel for the area and it left us wanting to go back. After talking to some other travelers it sounds like a return trip to Namibia and Botswana is in order. Some day...
 
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kdj

Observer
Excellent trip would love to do that one day. Would you mind giving a rough estimate of the bushlore rental cost? Looks like a great way to be self sufficient in a new land. Also great pictures.
 

kmacafee

Adventurer
My wife and I did a 3 week trip a few years ago starting in Livingstone Zambia and driving through Namibia. A really fantastic visit and Namibia and Etosha National Park are both amazing.
 

dfinn

Adventurer
Excellent trip would love to do that one day. Would you mind giving a rough estimate of the bushlore rental cost? Looks like a great way to be self sufficient in a new land. Also great pictures.

I think it was about $1500. I think this is their most expensive setup, you could do it for less by taking one of their cruisers with a RTT or they also have a lot of hilux for rent with similar camper setups.
 

Pntyrmvr

Adventurer
A subtle note; the cute canine are wild dog. As in a pack of wild dog. ie. not dogs.

The breed was almost wiped out by settlers as they were shocked by their savageness. Having seen them kill it looked no worse than any other kill by any other carnivore.

Great photos.


"Talk is cheap. Whiskey costs money."
 

rcharrette

Adventurer
Thanks for posting! South Africa is on our list of places for sure. We just did Costa Rica in a similar fashion (camping equipped rental truck). We like to travel independently having a small child and this might be a good option to move up our Africa trip a bit! Looks AMAZING
 

Africanhilux

Observer
WOW, awesome photos! It looks like you drove right through my hometown (Piet Retief). Kosi Bay is still looking beautiful as ever, and Kruger is definitely the place to go to have a better chance of seeing the rarer animals.
 

dfinn

Adventurer
Just pulled it up on google maps with some satellite view. We definitely drove through there. It sticks in my head because we walked into this coffee shop (at least that's what it said on the outside) and they looked at me like I was crazy when I asked for a coffee. It's also the same town where I accidentally ordered a pizza with hot dogs stuffed in the crust. :) We had a few laughs at that stop for sure.
 

KRP

Observer
What a great trip!

Coincidentally... we did the same thing, at exactly the same time. We picked up the truck from JoBurg Bushlore on Feb 27th and had it for 3 weeks. We reversed the trip though, going through Lesotho, Kosi Bay/Mabibi Beach, then Swaziland and up to Kruger. It was amazing!
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rifleshooter

New member
This sounds very intriguing. How much was the rental for three weeks? Any idea how much you spent on fuel? Any detailed info would be much appreciated. I looked at the bushlore sight but am having a bit of difficulty with the conversion to US dollar. Thank you.
 

dfinn

Adventurer
I think the vehicle was about $1500 US for us and it was about 2.5 weeks. I didn't keep tabs on fuel but it seemed like we were paying close to US prices from what I remember. Bushlore was quick to email back and they were very easy to work with, I'm sure if you send them an email they will respond shortly if you're interested. You can call them too but the time difference can be a challenge.
 

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