Saturday 27th August 2016: early morning, departure at 7am, 2 hours to the border of Swaziland and back into South Africa and Kruger Park. Lots of money has been spent on the Swaziland road through the mountains, with the blasting and necessary retaining walls. We pass through scattered rural communities, and into fruit trees, citrus, mangoes, macadamia and bananas, irritated by a big dam. Steve keeps us amused with his jokes and stories and info on Kruger before we get there. After the border crossing, there is lots of irrigated sugar cane and processing mills.  
 
Kruger originally started in1902 to preserve the stock for hunting, but after the British won the Boer War, it was made into a reserve, cleared of poachers and the inhabitants relocated and today it covers 35,000 sq km, after removing the fences with next door private reserves, and on the border with Mozambique which bordered Kruger. The Sabi River separates Kruger from the Sabi Sand where we are going.
 
Elephants: they are very destructive grazers, pushing over trees and eating the bark off others which causes the tree to die. Their tusks are actually teeth and they have 24 other teeth, with only 4 above the gum and when these get worn down or fall out they are replaced by another 4 and the animal will die of starvation if it uses up all of its teeth. They can also drink up to 300 litres a day. The African elephant is the largest elephant and can weigh up to 6 tonne.
Giraffe: have a very large heart which beats at 65 beats per minute so as to push blood up that long neck to the brain. It has a 50cm long sticky tongue with which it is able to clean its eyes and ears.
We drive a couple of hours into the park to the small airport where our guides and our safari jeeps are waiting. The coach leaves and this is our transport for the next couple of days. Stanley is our driver, and Mandrew the spotter and tracker in our jeep. There is only 5 in our jeep (Landrover actually), but I want to call it a jeep and the rows of seats are tiered so everyone gets a good view. It is 30 minutes over a very rough road to the 'Lions Sand' resort - right in the middle of nowhere. At a dry creek crossing there is a herd of 15 elephants which keep us snapping as they slowly move out of the way. We all have our own thatched roofed apartment - absolutely beautiful, and have to be escorted back and forth after dark. The landing outside our bedroom can only be used during daylight hours, today there was a large deer right there, before that he had wandered through where we were having late lunch and 5 giraffe kept their distance while we were eating. At 3pm we had 'high tea' and at 3.30 it was back into the jeeps for our first safari. We saw so many elephants, (lots of photos for you Charlie) giraffes, zebra, lots of different deers, a rhino and African buffalo. At sunset we stopped on a rise and out came the nibbles and any type of drink and then home by spotlight to see any after dark creatures - not many of them. Lovely dinner out on the decking, under the trees lit by lanterns. 6.30am we leave on safari again.
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