Kruger National Park - Dawn
Well, we couldn’t visit South Africa without going to a game reserve. Before dawn we set off to explore just a small part of this huge reserve. Kruger National Park is one of the largest game reserves in Africa. It covers an area of 19,485 square kilometres (7,523 sq mi) in the provinces of Limpopo and Mpumalanga in north-eastern South Africa, and extends 360 kilometres (220 mi) from north to south and 65 kilometres (40 mi) from east to west.
In the late 1800s hundreds of fortune seekers came to the Lowveld lured by rumours of gold and the great quantity of valuable commodities such as ivory and skins. There followed a dramatic decline of wild animals in the region, and in 1895, Jakob Louis van Wyk introduced in the Volksraad (former Parliament) of the old South African Republic, a motion to create the game reserve which would become the Sabi Game Reserve, later being expanded into the Kruger National Park in 1926.
It had rained the night before and the morning was on the cool side which seemed to encourage more animals to be active – and less mosquitoes. It is late summer in the Kruger which means the vegetation [scrub] is dense.
Kruger National Park - Dawn
Well, we couldn’t visit South Africa without going to a game reserve. Before dawn we set off to explore just a small part of this huge reserve. Kruger National Park is one of the largest game reserves in Africa. It covers an area of 19,485 square kilometres (7,523 sq mi) in the provinces of Limpopo and Mpumalanga in north-eastern South Africa, and extends 360 kilometres (220 mi) from north to south and 65 kilometres (40 mi) from east to west.
In the late 1800s hundreds of fortune seekers came to the Lowveld lured by rumours of gold and the great quantity of valuable commodities such as ivory and skins. There followed a dramatic decline of wild animals in the region, and in 1895, Jakob Louis van Wyk introduced in the Volksraad (former Parliament) of the old South African Republic, a motion to create the game reserve which would become the Sabi Game Reserve, later being expanded into the Kruger National Park in 1926.
It had rained the night before and the morning was on the cool side which seemed to encourage more animals to be active – and less mosquitoes. It is late summer in the Kruger which means the vegetation [scrub] is dense.