Post Number 8 - Malelane Camp - Kruger National Park

Place: Malelane Camp - Kruger National Park

Country: South Africa

Location" Mpumpalanga

Climate: Lowveld - Subtropical

Driving "down the hill" to Malelane Camp

One of the camping area's.




Different views of the camp.

Looking from the camp, across the Crocodile River - note the change in vegetation.

Tony Park - Australia's Wilbur Smith, pre-eminent writer and renowned adventurer (commonly known as BS - Bwana San) suggested, early on in the planning stage of our trip, that we reduce our time in Cape Town by three days and spend an extra three days in Kruger National Park, staying in one of the many camps and self driving. P.S. if you haven't already noted, TM is VERY good at making LONG sentences LOL - it all reverts around his poor English skills. His father, a former school teacher, will be turning in his grave. Back to the BS, specifically, Mrs BS (Tony's wife, and in her case, BS stands for Beautiful Soul). Mrs BS tried to book us into a number of camps, eventually settling on Malelane Camp. What a great place it is, there was only one negative, which we will mention a little later.

Malelane Camp is only 70 kilometers or so from Tinga. Even though our hire car turned up two hours late (our introduction to "African Time") we were still able to set off at 1.00 pm. The Park Gates close at 6.00 pm (and you have to be off all the Park roads by that time), so TM thought we had plenty of time to do some shopping at Skukuza and "mosey on down" to Malelane. Just to add some "spice to the mix" TM decided to go down the dirt track, instead of the nice easy bitumen road - remember, you can only do 40 kph on dirt compared to 50 kph on the tar. The end result - we made the Gate, to book in by 5.30 pm and drove through the gate into the camp, which is some 5 kilometers distant at about 5.57 pm, really cutting it fine!

For those who know me, that is a typical TM trait and drives my SO (significant others) to the edge of despair.

What a contrast Malelane is to Tinga, going from total luxury and indulgence to a simple dwelling and self help. We enjoyed both - tremendously! Malelane is in the South Eastern section of Kruger, on the Crocodile River. The Park boundary is on the far side of the river and cane sugar farms farm up to the fence - I'm sure the Elephants try to get at the cane when it is ripe. There topography is totally different to Tinga area, which is a flat, rich, alluvial floodplain created from the overflow from the Sabie and Sand rivers. In contrast, the Malelane area is hilly, rocky and dryer and the vegetation is more sparse. There is much less water in the dry season and, as a result, the plants, birds and animals that inhabit the area are different.

We spent all our time in the area bounded by Berg-en-Dal, Afsaal and Lukimbi. There is an art to self driving that I didn't get to master. Unlike a game vehicle which is open and is easy to take photo's from, taking photo's from a car is much more difficult and very frustrating - especially when trying to keep all your body parts within the car! Despite this, an driving many kilometers, we did find many good photo opportunities, in particular with elephants, rhino and giraffe.

The highlight of the trip was having a Braai with Mr and Mrs BS. Mr BS displayed his legionary culinary skills, made more difficult (or was it easier) due to the lack of light, utensils and accompaniments. TM has been a fan of Tony Park from the day he read his first book, and to win this fantastic, luxury holiday from "Silent Predator" was unbelievable. As it was to meet my hero himself. In hindsight, it was more poignant, for me, to meet Mr and Mrs BS, in Malelane, the only part of the whole adventure that was not pure luxury - to spend time in his reality.

If you get the chance, please visit him at: http://www.tonypark.net

On our second night we had another treat. We got to meet and have a quick chat with Martie Goddard. What a motivated and committed woman she is! Honest and unafraid as well. Martie is "living her dream", which is to spend a year in Kruger National Park. She is now getting 150,000 hits to her blog each month and is a "huge celebrity". It was a privilege to sit and listen to Mr and Mrs BS chat with Martie.

If you want to know more, try this link: http://tonyparkblog.blogspot.com/2009/10/martie-goddard-interview.html

Or, go to this link: http://www.sanparks.org/blog

If, you do, go to Martie's story about the Vervet monkeys at Malelane - especially the leader of the pack, which is getting very aggressive and "bales up" most of the women. Unfortunately it's an example of what happens when the animals are feed - and camps are the prime places where this takes place.

Apart from this small negative another "thumbs up" for Malelane.

Post Number 7 - Game Drives at Tinga (Legions) Private Game Lodge

Place: Tinga Legions Private Game Lodge - Kruger National Park

Country: South Africa

Location: Mpumpalanga

Climate: Lowveld - Subtropical

PLEASE - do yourself a BIG favour, when you visit Kruger National Park, and any other Game Park for that matter, for your first couple of times, go out game viewing with the experts. All the ones I came across were very good, however, it's not their ability to find game for you to view that's most important, it's their knowledge of those animals and the stories they can tell you about them that is. Also you will pick up where to go, how to drive and what ettiquite you should follow when parking and viewing the animals (and waiting your turn).

Our guides were a treasure. Isaac had the most precious eyes, as they missed nothing - even spying a male Bloomslang snake in a tree on the side of the road, at night with a spotlight whilst we were traveling at 35 kilometers an hour! Paulie had a story about every animal we saw, and many times his story was as interesting as it was to see each animal for the first time in the wild.

Isaac, "on duty - up front" (within the Tinga concession).

The viewing vehicles are purpose built, and believe me, it's much easier to move around and take your photo in these, than it is in a car - especially if you're out by yourself! We visited in early October and whilst it did get cool on the drives, if you are going to Kruger in the six months prior to October you will need to "rug up" to keep warm. The wind chill factor from the wind created by your speed (you'll be in an open vehicle) is quite significant.


Paulie with four of his guests.

Our first game drive was so exciting, like anything new, even though we didn't see very much. I was boggle eyed the whole time. Even though Impala are every where and the other guests with us had seen thousands of them, Paulie took the time to stop and tell us about them - and the other guests sat quietly and patiently through the explanation. It was very windy, that first drive, and according to Paulie the animals were more concerned with self preservation (easier for the predators to sneak up on the "McDonald" animals) and were "hiding".

The subsequent drives were much more successful and we found our "BIG 5". We struggled to find a Leopard and Rhino but with much effort (and a little luck), we managed to bag them -oops, photograph them.

Isaac and Paulie tracking Lion (on the Tinga concession).

The foot prints they were following.

My major goal, at Kruger, was to see as many of the animals as I could. The longer I stayed, and the more I saw, the more interested I became in the birds and the plants - and having Paulie tell us about them all made everyone of them an exciting and unique discovery. I wish I had taken a recorder as I've almost forgotten all he told us - I am getting very blonde these days!

All too soon our time at Tinga had come to an end and we had to say goodbye to Isaac and Paulie, thankfully they will stay in my memory for ever, as will Tinga, which to me, was that magical place we strive to find among the clouds and fantasy.

Post Number 6 - Tinga (Legions) Private Game Lodge

Place: Tinga Legions Private Game Lodge - Kruger National Park

Country: South Africa

Location: Mpumalanga Province

Climate: Lowveld - Subtropical

At Last! The day had arrived for us to go to Tinga (Legions) Private Game Lodge in Kruger National Park. To see the game animals of Africa in their natural environment. To relive and experience all those years of stories from Wilbur Smith, Beverley Harper and my latest, favourite writer, Tony Park. I couldn't wait and was almost shaking with anticipation - but first we had to get there, so it was off the OR Tambo International Airport and onto a SAA flight to Nelspruit (Kruger-Mpumalanga International Airport). All went well until we boarded the bus to deliver us to our aeroplane - 20 minutes later we were all still standing on the bus. Eventually we were told their was a problem with the plane, which they were attempting to resolve. Seeing we had all been through the boarding procedures they tried to keep us on the bus but eventually they had to disembark us all back into the terminal. After another 30 minutes or so they fixed the problem and we were off - it felt like about four hours not one.

Kruger-Mpumalanga International Airport is cut out of the top of a hill and the building is truly amazing. It's styled on (what I assume) is a traditional African building, made of natural materials, timber, thatch and stone and I fell in love with it at first sight. After all the insipid concrete and plastic terminals I was used to in Australia this building had character and personality.


When studying the itinerary I didn't realise that we weren't even half way to Tinga and we still had a two to two and half hour drive ahead of us to get there. We had arrived at the end of the big dry and the closer we got to Kruger the dryer and more spindly the vegetation became. The first half of the drive reminded my of the mid north coast of New South Wales, in the higher rainfall areas. We passed kilometer upon kilometer of pine and eucalyptus plantations. It was certainly apparent that we weren't in Australia though; the road etiquette was very different, there were so many black people on the side of the road, walking or waiting for their taxi's and there were many signs telling us to watch out for cattle - there didn't seem to be fences anywhere.

We entered Kruger via the Paul Kruger gate and set out for Tinga, which although only about 20 kilometers inside the gate took almost half an hour to reach as the speed limit in the Park on bitumen is 50 kilometers and hour (kph) and 40 kmp on the dirt roads. I'll talk about the animals later and just talk about Tinga in this post. The vegetation in the park was totally desiccated and shrivelled with hardly a green shoot or leaf to be seen - in fact it was almost impossible to believe that the trees and scrub would be able to regenerate. Tinga has it's own concession which it looks after manages, in return for exclusive viewing rights - having driven down a couple of single lane dirt tracks we finally came to the gate to Tinga.


Once we had been electronically checked out we were allowed to enter.



I was about to learn how difficult it is to take good quality photographs in Kruger. The sun is so strong and for the middle eight hours of the day it overpowers most pictures ... and the biggest trap is when concentrating on taking photos of mostly moving animals, the last thing you tend to think about is the exposure and direction of the sun. So, this is not a good photo of the front entrance to Tinga as the greenery and blue sky is totally washed out.

We arrived at five minutes to four, just in time for the evening game drive, so it was a quick welcome, a rushed visit to our room to drops off our bags and grab our hats before we were whisked of by Isaac and Paulie.


Walkway to our private lodge.

View from outside.

View towards the Sabie River from the private viewing deck.


Our feet didn't touch the ground, for no sooner had we returned from our game drive than we were sitting down to our evening meal, which was superb. After a slow, relaxing meal and casual chats with the serving staff (and management, who also dropped by for a quick welcome and chat) we finally called Paulie and asked him to take us back to our suite. Each couple is assigned to a guide who looks after them for their stay and takes them on their game drives - they also take you to and from your rooms after dark.

The next morning we had a wake up call at 5.00 am for our 5.30 am game drive - so much for sleeping in! Eventually, after being at the lodge for eighteen hours, we were able to have a good look around:


Staring at the ceiling took in a whole new dimension!

Luxury, comfort and style as the indoors meets the outdoors.

This huge Jackalberry tree made a tremendous focal point, between the Lodge and the River.






The main Lodge and Suites were fenced in and it was safe to walk around during daylight. This magnificent Braai put to shame anything I had seen in Australia, although we call them a Barbie.



A closer view of the Sabie River.

As our stay was only for two nights, it all went too quickly. The highlight was our evening meal on the second night, which was cooked and set up in a clearing in the bush, with lanterns and fires providing the light as the sun went down and the night crept in. We had wondered why our guides were walking around with their rifles and bullets - it was for our protection. It was a magical night that I'll remember forever, as will the surprise as we had no idea that we were about to eat out in the bush amongst the animals I'd read about for the last forty years.

In conclusion, it is very rare that a wish or treat, looked forward to for such a long time, actually delivers. Most times the expectation is far greater than the experience. Not on this occasion! Everything from the people, to the design and fittings, suites, lodge, drivers and guides was total class. As we know, in business, the secret is to deliver more than you promise in this case the bar was set very, very high and exceeded.

Post Number 5 - Pretoria

Place: Pretoria

Country: South Africa

Location: Central, North Eastern South Africa Gauteng Province

Climate: Transitional between Highveld and Bushveld - Subtropical

Pretoria, Capital of South Africa - well I thought it was, until I did a little bit of research. It appears there are three capitals of South Africa, Pretoria (Administrative), Cape Town (Legislative) and Bloemfontein (Judicial). All too confusing for this "little black duck" (translation - Not me, no way, I'm not going to get involved). OK, let's get back on track here ...

We only spent a day in Pretoria, my impressions were of a modern, leafy, colourful, cosmopolitan city, with many impressive and significant buildings and parks. It was very hazy so it wasn't at its best to view and truly appreciate. Being October, the most striking feature was the Jacaranda trees. Pretoria is sometimes called "Jacaranda City" and it's easy to see why.





There are more than 50,000 Jacarandas in Pretoria and as they are an exotic plant (they come from Argentina) they have been placed on the "weed and invader plant list", which means they have to be destroyed. This has created quite a debate - it appears they may be able to remain but not replaced if ans when they die. Jacaranda's are also very popular in Australia, expescially in regional areas - Grafton springs to mind.

Kobus, our driver (and the man with the 13 dogs and 4 snakes) took us for a drive around the city, ending up at Union Building and gardens. Funny name for the residentency of the government and presidency.






Many hands make light work.

We stayed at the much awarded Court Classique Hotel. Whist it was evident why it has won it's awards, we must have visited on an "off day" as the front desk service was quite poor. The gardens were very impressive but in comparing it with Ten Bompass in Johannesburg, it came up short in every other aspect.






A whistle stop visit of Pretoria whet my appetite to come back, if possible, and spend more time looking around. The building that houses UNISA, caught me eye as it's HUGE, as did the communications tower with the big soccer ball.

Rovos Rail - "Pride of Africa"

Event: Rail journey from Cape Town to Pretoria

Country: South Africa

Details: 1,600 kilometer journey, duration 2 days

Like all "red blooded" males with a pulse, TM loves trains. If you look hard enough I'm sure you'll find an old train set or two hiding away in a box somewhere in my past. Unlike most people today, I can remember steam trains, belching smoke and steam, whistle screeching, proudly pounding their way along the rails prior to their demise, at the expense of the diesel locomotive. Oh - I was looking forward to this journey, into the future and the past. We'd been sitting around for two days getting over jet lag and flying down to Cape Town to "mount our steed" - it was time to get our African trip underway.

After meeting for "drinks" accompanied by a stringed duet in the Rovos Rail Lounge we were assigned to our Hostess and escorted to the Pride of Africa on Platform 23.

Rovos Rail Lounge

Tablecloth on Table Mountain overlooking Cape Town Station

All the carriages making up the train have been painstakingly restored, and once aboard, it was easy to travel back in time to the 1920's -30's. Our train was made up of 20 odd carriages; talk about luxury and being spoilt, there were 29 passengers being looked after by almost 20 staff. Wow! Before we knew it, the train was pulling out of the station and our adventure had begun. Lunch was served two hours later and TM hadn't moved from his window - apart from taking photos.


Dining car

Smoking Lounge

Observation Car

The highlights from day one were: passing through the Hex River Pass and spending ten minutes going through the longest tunnel; visiting Matjiesfontein and traveling around a villiage no longer than 500 meters in a London double decker bus with the conductor yelling out "it's Showtime" every thirty seconds; dining in a suit and tie and trying to sleep, swaying from side to side. Thankfully the train stopped in Hutchinson for a couple of hours and TM was able to drift off.

Entering the Hex River Mountains


Sunset over the Karoo

The following morning TM awoke at 6.30 am and wandered down to the observation car and sat out on the open deck at the rear of the train and just totally relaxed as the world passed him by. Duncan brought him a Cappuccino and for about one hour he was able to sit by himself and imagine living in a different time and world - it was worth the whole trip to just to do that. At about 2.30 pm we pulled into Kimberley, departed the train and went on a conducted tour of the "big hole" and the mine museum. De Beers still have their headquarters for their world wide operations in Kimberley. A couple of interesting facts that stayed with me were: mining actually finished in 1914 and the reason there is no trees for hundreds of kilometers around Kimberley is they were all used in the mining process!

The "Big Hole"

Just as we pulled out of Kimberley, on the way north to Pretoria, we passed a lake that has spectacular flocks of Flamingos, in excess of 23,000. We didn't see anywhere near that many - it's a big lake but we saw more than enough to take some photos and to exclaim!

Flamigos on Kamfers Dam, Kimberley

TM's favourite "possie" on the train, watching the world pass by.

On the final day we pulled into Centurion Station in the midst of a slight electrical storm. The final lightening strike took out all the signals on our line through to Rovos Headquarters in Pretoria. Consequently we had a " longer than planned" stay at the platform waiting for our steam train to join us, to bring us home. In a way it just added to the tension, would the steam train join us or not? Luckily, it did.

Admiring the Steam Engine (Keith giving it the thumbs up)

After a delay of almost three hours we pulled out of Centurion for the last 30 minutes or so of the trip under steam! TM is the "typical Australian (baby boomer) Male" who, amongst other well documented short comings, is totally unemotional - well he thought he was. He was like a little kid, with the windows down on both sides of the carriage, running from one to the other, to get the best views as they moved down the tracks. Oh, the smell, the sight of the plume of smoke bellowing from the engine and the cinders hitting your face as you "craned out" as far as possible to take it all in, - watching our train on the bends, proudly and regally bringing us home.

What can you say - apart from "I wish the photo was better" LOL

Pulling into Rovos Headquarters at Capital Park Station.

Yes, I can admit it - the tears in my eyes were not just from the wind rushing past. Thank you Andrew, Yui and Duncan for looking after us - it was truely the best ride of my life.

Post Number 3 - Johannesburg

Place: Johannesburg

Country: South Africa

Location: Central, North Eastern South Africa, Gauteng Province

Climate: Subtropical Highlands

The flight from Perth to Johannesburg takes eleven hours of which more than ten hours are spent looking down at the Indian Ocean. When flying west the aircraft flies with the sun, so even though we left at midnight, the whole trip was spent in darkness – apart from the last thirty minutes which was in the predawn. The city looks beautiful at that time, the yellow lights still creating contrast with the night, which had lightened enough to show hues of blue, indigo and pink. With hardly a bump we landed and taxied to our gate, which luckily, was very close to customs because OR Tambo International Airport is big. TM’s mother had traveled to South Africa 14 months previously and the airport was in the midst of being upgraded and extended for the Football World Cup in 2010. The only construction work still underway is beneath the airport, where an underground railway terminal is being built, which apparently is a replica of the Paris underground station.

The longest part of the entry process was waiting for our bags; in almost no time at all we were through customs and being whisked off by our Springbok Atlas driver to our Maxi Cab for delivery to our Ten Bompas hotel in Sandton. By this time it was light and the sun was about to sneak above the horizon – TM took a deep breathe of air and thought, I’m in Africa, at long last.

Joburg is the largest city, by far, that I have ever visited. The major, over riding first impression was the number of people walking around – almost exclusively black. Later TM found out that public transport is not very good, those who can drive and the rest use a combination of rail, bus and informal taxi’s. Most of the population use the informal minibus taxis, which carry up to seventeen very squashed passengers in vehicles that would fail road worthy certificates in Australia on almost all counts. Drivers need to keep their wits about them as these “taxi’s” stop without warning and regularly break down (and are left where the stop, mostly in the lane they were traveling in)!

There seem to be many vendors selling all sorts of goods at most sets of traffic lights. We even came across one man, leading a (supposed?) blind woman between cars, asking for donations to help him support her. TM has no idea how she survived the day without getting run over as the man leading her around was more interested in collecting donations, than looking after her welfare. Big Balls! It seemed everywhere we looked there were people selling big fluffy footballs (soccer balls) – in any colour you wanted. All to do with the World Cup that is being played in South Africa in less than twelve months. Our guide told us there was a very large influx of Zimbabweans into South Africa and this was causing undue stress in the native population as the Zimbabweans were more desperate for work and they are working harder for less money. As we all know, those two ingredients are very important to employers so many local blacks have lost their jobs and are struggling to retain their shacks and status in their townships.

Most people don’t like Joburg at all – I did. Our driver told us that the official population is around 8 million but including the illegal immigrants it is more like 11 million. I enjoyed the vibrant energy and pulse of the city. The colours, smell and movement really give it a beat and drive that I haven’t experienced before. Not that I’ve ever been in a city that big before either. And once you get over the ten foot high fences (oops walls) with razor wire (or broken glass and spears embedded in the top layer of concrete).

If our van broke down and I was stranded I’d sing a different tune I’m sure! For the cricketers amongst you, we passed “the Wanderers stadium” – it didn’t look like the fortress it has been to opposing teams for so many years. We stayed in a small hotel called Ten Bompas http://www.tenbompas.com. It lived up to its reputation and was by far the best hotel we stayed in, in Africa. The food was terrific, the service was grand, the room was exquisite and the grounds were secured, elegantly appointed and for Africa, topical but charmingly understated.

Our driver told us he lives in Pretoria because it’s much safer than Johannesburg (it’s only 50 odd kilometres away). He only had a six foot high wall around his house but relied on his 13 dogs, 3 tree snakes and 1 puff adder to convince intruders that managed to scale the fence that it was not a good idea to proceed.

A big thumbs up, from me, for Joburg.

January 2009

Traveling Man was tired. He was really tired. It was around 11.00 am on a Friday morning, towards the end of January this year. All he had to do was get home, but that wasn’t going to be easy. Especially seeing he had another three hours driving ahead of him. It was hot and even though the aircon was working fine, the laziness of the day had seeped through the thin metallic skin of TM’s mobile office and the mood had enveloped him, in a form of osmosis. Yes, it had been a long hard week “working for the man”, out in the eastern wheat belt of Western Australia.

Just as his eyelids started to droop again, TM’s mobile phone (cell phone) chirped away. Bugger he thought, the last thing I want to do is pull over – I’ll never get home! TM and technology – what a great example of an oxymoron – they just don’t work together at all. Although the car (mobile office) was only a little over twelve months old, the car kit to enable hands free operation of the mobile phone had never worked. As he was driving on the Great Eastern Highway, which is well patrolled by the “blue heelers - cops” he reluctantly pulled over and took the call.

Well, everyone has a red-letter day eventually and TM’s had just caught up with him, in the form of a luxury 14 day all expenses paid trip to South Africa for two people. Wow! That woke him up – there was no chance of falling asleep after that call. Five days in Kruger National Park (two staying at Tinga Private Game Lodge), two days on the Rovos Pride of Africa train and five days in Cape Town …. Yahoo! Tony Parks really rocks!

Back in July of 2008 TM had entered a competition, organised by the publishers of one of Australia’s leading authors (well, you’ve got to be in it to win it) and then promptly forgotten all about it. Wow! TM’s first coherent thought was “people DO actually win these things”.

Since the age of thirteen when he fell in love with Africa, after reading Wilbur Smith’s “When the Lion Feeds”, TM had harboured a burning desire to see the “Dark Continent” first hand. Bugger me dead, he thought – it’s actually going to happen. The train scene from the beginning of one of his favourite films, “Out of Africa”, kept flitting into his mind and the soaring music that accompanied it played in his ears all the way home.

So, whilst Traveling Man is going to be all about Western Australia, there will be a small detour and the series will start in South Africa ….