The 3-day Kruger Safari: Day 1

The drive there:

A van picks me and Drew up at 9am from Curiocity hostel in Maboneng, Johannesburg. The van holds about 12 people including the driver.

We drove about 3 hours to Alzu Petroport N4, near Middleburg, where we grabbed coffee. The rest stop is right next to some sort of animal park and we actually see some rhinos (this is the only time we saw rhinos the whole trip, unfortunately they are very rare due to poaching).

Lunch:

Around 1:30 we end up in Dullstroom, a rural village, and get lunch at The Mayfly Restaurant. I had the battered mushrooms and “Lady’s steak” (which is smaller than the regular steak—perfect for me!) Everything tasted great. Lunch was not included with Viva Safari but was not very expensive ($12).

This stop also had some nice jacaranda trees still in bloom. It’s a bit colder in Johannesburg so we missed the iconic jacaranda trees there by a couple weeks.

The Tremisana Lodge:

We get dropped off at Tremisana Lodge at 5:00, which looked really pretty. I was happy to see a monkey family hanging out eating fruit right outside my room!

The room was small but had an ensuite bathroom and the shower worked great. We didn’t have a lot of time to sit around though because we had to get on our first safari drive.

Private nature reserve sunset drive:

We loaded up onto the safari vehicle for a couple hour sunset drive in a private nature preserve. This was amazing! We saw lions and elephants really close up, along with impala and a variety of birds and smaller animals.

The landscape looked incredible in the sunset and it was an unforgettable experience. Some people recommend the private nature reserves because you can get a little closer to the animals as you don’t have to stay on official roads. At least for us, this was the most wildlife activity we saw in a short amount of time during the whole trip.

Dinner at Marula Boma:

The drive took us to another lodge, Marula Boma, for a braai—or barbecue—around 7:00. The scene looked really cool, lit by fire and candlelight under a big tree.

We were served sausage (unknown what kind), chicken, coleslaw, grits with sauce, and peaches and cream for dessert. Everything was tasty and it was fun to eat under the night sky and the bright full moon.

To my surprise there were no mosquitoes, in fact we never really encountered that many on the whole trip.

Back to the lodge:

We made it back to Tremisana Lodge around 8:45. We still wanted to hang out with our fellow travelers and went to the lodge bar for some beer.

The bar was fun and we saw a cute little frog.

We were super tired and had a long day ahead so hit the hay around 10:00pm. The bed came with a mosquito net but I really didn't need it, which was great. I fell asleep right away, ready for the all-day safari the next day.