Bye Bye Kruger


For our last few hours in Kruger, we decided to do our own sunrise game drive. We got out on the road by 6:15 am and the sun was not yet up. Once we were on the road we were taking the same route as the previous day, but the whole valley and the rivers were covered in this gorgeous fog and the morning light coming over the horizon made it a spectacular drive just for the scenery alone. However, about 20 minutes into our drive south, we saw something in the middle of the road and as we got closer, we saw that it was a huge hyena. We hadn't seen one yet and it was kind of eerie with all the fog. Even though they're related to dogs, hyenas scare me. Once again, The Lion King shows its pervasive hold over my perceptions of Africa. then, just a minute or two after that, we saw something large run out onto the road. It was still very misty so we didn't know exactly what it was. But we got a bit closer and saw that it was a male lion, fully grown, and he was roaring. He laid down on the asphalt and rolled around for a minute then he got up and started trotting towards our car. Still roaring. He passed RIGHT by the driver side door (it's on the right here) and it was completely incredible. We didn't expect to see a leopard but we had really hoped for a lion. The night before, I had been fervently praying that we would see a lion and I had a dream about seeing one and it was waving goodbye to me when I was leaving the park. This was about as close to my dream as it could get. I was so thankful and awed by it. We really did have an amazing time in Kruger and we got some incredible sightings. I'll post a few of the pictures here but will post the bulk of them on Flickr.

After we said goodbye to Kruger while leaving through the Orpen gate, we headed west to the Panorama route through gorgeous forests and over rolling hills. We got to a town called Grasklop and bought a small map guiding us to some of the different sights. Then we got to the first stop, the Pinnacle. There were some really interesting terrain changes on this trip and I am really struck by the geographic and botanical diversity in Africa. Today alone we have been in a rainforest, a savannah, and a mountainous deciduous forest. We got to see some lovely outcroppings and, you guessed it, panoramas. Well worth the detour for the diversity and the small hikes. We also stopped for a while at a lovely waterfall called Lisbon Falls. There was a lot more in the region we could have done, some more small towns to explore but Jo'burg and Cape Town are calling. The Experts told us we'd need to book a guest house on the route because there was so much to see and do. We were happy with our small portion of it, but there were lots of motorcyclists and cyclists out presumably doing the route themselves at a leisurely pace. It's something like Skyline drive in Shenandoah.

Now we're back in Jo'burg and ready to leave for Cape Town tomorrow. Hard to believe I'm only a week from being back in the states! See you all soon.

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