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.
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