Kruger Park

We drove north from Swaziland and headed for Kruger Park.  Some beautiful vistas along the way, although it was kind of hazy.










We also passed through some farmland...these are papaya trees.






Elder Pead kindly got out to give a point of reference.












We entered Kruger from the south.




We came in through the Malelane Gate.  We drove all day...past closing (we were stopped by a night game driver and instructed to go the nearest gate to exit the park as quickly as possible or we would be charged a fine...) and exited through the Paul Kruger Gate.  We covered very little of the park.

If you look at the bottom of the map, in between the Malelane Camp and the Malelane Gate in blue italicized letters you will see the word: Crocodile.

Just before going through the gate we came to a bridge.  Many cars were pulled over to the edge of the road and the people were out of their cars looking over the side of the bridge.




This is what we saw:



There are at least 4 crocodiles in this photo.  Here's some other shots.  They were on both sides of the bridge; in the water and out.







I like this guy's accessory.  And a close up of his pretty smile:






You can bet we got excited.  I think the park entrance fee was about 50 Rand...which is about $3.50 each.  I will post the pictures in the order they were taken.  I'm thinking they speak for themselves.  We would drive around for 40 minutes and not see any animals.  And then, we would turn on to a road and it was a new herd of something at every twist and turn of the road.

Impala

I love how baby is tucked up tight against mom.

We think because of the 2 babies that were with the group this guy gave us a snort and a stamp and then came toward our van.  We decided it was time to move on.

It's cool how the horns look like the branches.

Kudu horns.  Incredible.

This isn't a very clear picture...but these are wild dogs.  We let them lie.

Mama hyena nursing her babies.  It was weird because she was lying right next to the road.

You can see her checking us out.

She decided we weren't worth the worry.

We lost our light and got booted out of the park!  Pretty awesome day.