Planning for South Africa

What I knew of South Africa was due to cricket and their cricket grounds. Johannesburg meant ‘Centurion’, Durban meant ‘Kings mead’ and Cape Town meant ‘Newlands’ with the beautiful view of Table mountains as a backdrop.

We had more or less planned for South of France and Switzerland when Kartik (my 12 year old son) and I had a chance game of Golf with Francis and John (the ambassadors of South Africa and Zimbabwe respectively to India). A chat with them during the game convinced me that Africa was the place to go. John felt that I should go to Johannesburg and then drive to the majestic Victoria Falls. He felt that it would be an experience going to this natural wonder of the world and playing Golf there and seeing the game in that amazing surrounding. The thought of playing Golf with Victoria Falls as backdrop kept me excited for a couple of days. Thus started the research about ‘Holiday Africa.’ The casualty was the visit to the Victoria Falls. Victoria falls, between Zambia and Zimbwawe   looked and sounded good but had to be eliminated from itinerary as it would have taken a long time to drive there and back. The air fares were much too expensive. John would say that when you drive to countries like South Africa,Botswana, Mozambique,Swaziland , Zambia and Zimbabwe, you would see unimaginable wild-life. In his words- the animals don’t know the boundaries of countries and for them it was one big natural habitat. Very soon it dawned on me that I wasn’t adventurous enough to do this.

Opinion was taken from my cousin Kunal and his family (our summer holiday companions). Forget about the Jungles of central Africa, they were reluctant to go to even south Africa as the perception was about it being unsafe, but they soon came around once they heard about the itinerary and what South Africa had to offer. Some pressure tactics had to applied for this.

As most flights are to Johannesburg, the Kruger National Park was to be the first destination. The deeper you went into research, more confusing it got. Kruger was around 5 hours drive from Johannesburg. Kruger National Park covers 19,485 square kilometres and extends 360 km from north to south and 65 km from east to west. It had several Gates to enter. From where do we enter ? Where do we stay ? Many websites talked about many places to stay. They talked about camps, rest camps and also the private wildlife reserves. We were advised to stay in private wildlife reserves as they offered luxury and guaranteed sighting of the ‘big 5.’ We were recommended Sabi Sands game reserve or the Timbavati private game reserve. Each of these reserves had many private lodges. The more I read about these lodges, the more I liked what they had to offer. Nice luxury tents or lodges with comfortable beds and central heating; 6 course meals with wine; trained rangers to take you for safari; a folk dance over the bar-be-que in evenings etc. etc. The dampener was the price. It ranged from Rs 25,000 to Rs 80,000 per person per day! Ruled out !

Now , here comes the help of several sites like tripadvisor.com, krugerpark.co.za/ and many travelogues written on the net. People had a lot to write about their trip to Kruger and many of them wrote about the government owned and run camps there. Names like Skukuza, Berg en dal, Lowere Sabie Camp, crocodile camp, Pretoriuskop, Satara , Orpen and Olifants were some names which came into consideration.

We decided to take one thing at a time. First we booked the flights which would fly into Johanneburg and fly out of Cape Town(our last destination). Emirates offered this and when we tried booking the tickets, the agent said that return tickets were sold out. In January for June travel ! Luckily, we did manage tickets from Emirates website. Once we did this, it was time to do detailed research on the camps and their locations and then book them. The conclusion I reached after reading all the reviews was that we should enter from the crocodile bridge gate, drive a couple of hours at a slow speed trying to catch some game watching. Stay at Lower Sabie camp on the fringe of lower sabie river. Spend a couple of nights there doing a few morning and evening safaris and then drive out a couple of hours to Skukuza camp (the largest camp of Kruger) on the western side of the Park . Spend a night there and the leave in morning driving through Panoramic route of Blyde river Canyon to Johannesburg. The bookings could be done through sanpark.org which was the official website for these camps. We were doing the bookings for June in January so there would apparently be enough time. Sanparks.org had a different story. It shows you for each day the accommodation that was available. You can check out the location of the hut number on the map it provides. Lower sabie was a fairly large camp and I really got a shock when I saw that all accommodation other than a couple of tents, 1 hut (for 2 people) and a few camp sites, everything had already been booked for the dates we wanted. What we had required was a 2 B/R cottage and a triple cottage. Now that Lower Sabie was ruled out, there was a bit of panic and an urgent need to do quick bookings.

There is not much to choose between different camps. Each had pros and cons and each is in an area where you do get animal sightings. Some are large and some are small. We decided to go in for Satara Camp which was more towards central Kruger. It is supposed to be at the heart of the park and this area is especially good for lion sightings. Further on from there is Olifants, another good camp but a little too far. Satara I hear is a big camp with decent accommodation. It would take around 5 hours from crocodile river gate to get here. The accommodation was available so we booked it. This resulted in change of plan. We had earlier planned to start driving from Johannesburg early in morning to get to Lower Sabie Camp. Now there was a change in plan and we decided to take it easy on the morning after our arrival to Johannesburg and start driving after lunch. We decided to spend the night outside the reserve in a small town called Komatipoort and drive into the reserve in the morning so that we could drive at leisure, spend a couple of hours near Lower Sabie and then reach Satara by 2 or 3 PM. This would give us enough time to do an evening safari if others were up to it. For the next 2 days we booked Skukuza as I heard there was a lot to do and river facing cottages were very nice. Skukuza , the HQ of Kruger is like a mini township but close to where good game exists. As it is near the Paul Kruger gate, it would be easy to get out and do the panoramic route before spending the evening at the Sandton area of Johannesburg. The total cost of accommodation inside Kruger park for the family of 4 in 2 bedroom cottages for 3 nights without meals came to Rs 30,000.00. Not bad I would say. 

At the time we started planning South Africa trip, the idea was to spend some time in Johannesburg/Kruger with maybe a day or so at Sun City. The next destination was supposed to be Cape Town. We had 2 weeks and if we were to spend around 5 days at each place, we would still be left with 4 days. Do we stop at Dubai on way back? The idea of stopping Dubai in burning June after a cool and picturesque Cape Town was just not appealing. It so happened that I met up with someone at a party who had just come back from South Africa. When I asked him what other things would be recommended besides what we were actually planning- his advise was ‘Garden Route.’ I had not heard of this route before. It opened up a new chapter for research.

People take garden route from Cape Town as its one of the most picturesque routes in the world. It’s a coastal drive which goes to Hermanus (famous for whale watching) , Sweellendam , George, Knysna and Tsitsikamma  National park. The idea is to drive upto a point one day and drive back the next day. Seeing the map, I had a better idea. Why not go the other way round to Port Elizabeth and drive down leisurely to Cape Town? Our flight back was from Cape Town so this should work well.

I booked a flight from Johannesburg to Port Elizabeth. The best place to stay is the town of Knysna in the middle so have booked 2 nights accommodation there. Most likely one night will be spent at Tsitsikamma national Park and another at town of  Oudtshoorn . Oudtshoom is situated on the edge of the Garden Route, between the Outeniqua and Swartberg Mountain Passes. The place is full of Ostrich, Cango Caves, and boasts of maximum number of sunny days a year in South Africa. Interesting part is that Oudtshoom is not on the garden route but a famous route called Route 62 which turns inwards from the town of George. Its supposed to be a very scenic drive and later goes through the wine country . I may not have decided on this route had June be a whale watching month. In mid June there are no whales at Hermanus so it makes sense to take this diversion and see the other aspect of South Africa. Besides, it is said that route 62 is warmer and more pleasant than Garden route as the Garden route could get very windy and chilly during June and July. Many have described Route 62 to be more picturesque than even garden route.

 

In Cape Town we are spending four nights so it made sense to book an apartment so we could be comfortable and independent. Cape Town itself needs no planning as we will do most touristy things-weather permitting.

The overall effect of this planning and reading was that one realised that doing such a trip was once in a lifetime opportunity. The trip would offer - visiting world renown national parks; driving on the coast as well on the mountains ; hiking on some picturesque trails like Otter trail ; and seeing wildlife up and close. To do justice to this trip I invested in a good camera. Then I did a one day course in DSLR photography. This resulted in doing some reading about photography and once again I was drawn to a two day course in photography by a professional. This further led to more investment is lenses, special carry bag, filters, tripod and other equipment. Am I an expert photographer now ? No way !! I haven’t yet touched the tip of the iceberg. As I tell my golfer friends- would a beginner become a good golfer by just buying a new expensive set  and attending a 2 day coaching camp ? Maybe by next year – when I go to Mozambique or Victoria falls or Kenya- I will become a 14 handicapper in photography.

 

Bags are packed, Ipads, mobiles, cameras, laptops and their chargers are all secured. Warm clothes, binoculars, medicines and booking vouchers are all packed away. Just waiting for Saturday morning to arrive so that we could be on our way. I hope the trip is good so I could share with everyone what we actually did. Hopefully, there will be some detailed blogs coming on my return.