After the private drive at Makalali we headed into Kruger National Park, a protected area larger than the country of Wales that also encompasses land areas in Mozambique and Zimbabwe. Similar to the animals at Addo, most big game were hunted until they were eradicated or nearly so. In the late 1800’s and early 1900’s private landowners began to set aside land in an attempt to protect some animals, and these lands turned into Kruger in 1926. It has grown since then, and contains lion, elephant, giraffe, zebra, hippo, crocodile (we saw all of these), rhino, a plethora of antelope species, and many many other animals, birds and plants.

We had so much fun driving around and exploring, although we only covered only about 1/3 of the area of this park. We enjoyed watching the many waterholes and observing the hippos and crocodiles, which get along quite well and are almost always found together. We camped two nights in the park and enjoyed sundowner drinks and sunsets by the river while watching the wildlife.

A trip to South Africa is not complete without visiting Kruger, and we hope we’ll make it back someday so that we can continue exploring the park.