By Neil Burton

Website:  Http://www.travellinglight.de

Self-drive safari?

To see the most famous of Africa’s inhabitants, including the Big Five, people often spend a small fortune for specialty tours and safaris. But here is how you can do it on a budget, and at all times be in complete control of where you go and how long you stay in any given spot.

Lion Cub

Where?

Kruger National Park, South Africa.

How?

Flight to Johannesburg, internal flight to Nelspruit or car hire from Johannesburg. I recommend flying to Nelspruit, it is not expensive and saves the five or six hour drive. Once in Nelspruit you will still need to hire a vehicle.

Planning

Your accommodation within the park needs to be booked prior to entering, this was formerly done by ringing the SANparks office or through a travel agent, but thankfully South African National Parks now have an internet booking system. The system is completely up-to-date and is a brilliant way to plan and book your trip, it took me ten minutes! Address below.

Bataleur Eagle

Choice and accommodation

The park camps have accommodation ranging from safari tents to bungalows with air-con, you can even camp if you wish to take your own tent. For the real budget conscious traveller the safari tents are a brilliant bargain, shared facilities but you wake up to the sounds of Africa.

Accommodation close to, or overlooking, the perimeter fences is more expensive and not always justifiably so. The perimeter is generally only a few minutes walk from any room, so more of a luxury than a necessity.

All accommodation has a braii (barbeque) and camp shops sell all you need to make use of it, but stocking up on water and essentials before entering he park works out cheaper.

Lion King

What to see

Nearly all the predators are here and sighted on a daily basis. If you are really lucky a cheetah, wild dog or caracal will also be checked off your list. There is an immense number of raptors and other birds, not to mention antelopes and prey animals such as impala. Buffalo, elephant and rhino are also on the list, you may even see a black rhino if your luck is in.

Cost

Flights from Europe to Johannesburg (for me via Dubai) cost as little as 500€, direct flights booked well in advance are currently around this price (after the football World Cup!). Internal flights will set you back around 120€. Car hire, standard 4-door saloon with AC, around 180€. Bungalows, which accommodate two persons (check the booking system for max occupancy per room) cost 60- 70€ depending on the position in the camp. Safari tents cost around 30€ per night for two persons.

My recommendations

A night at Tamboti tented camp. All rooms overlook the river bed and you are almost guaranteed to wake up to the sound of roaring lions.

Skukuza. Not that the camp is special but it is close to Panic Lake, a morning spent in the hide shooting hippos, crocodiles and kingfishers is a morning well spent.

Pied Kingfisher

Lower Sabie. Another ‘busy with tourists’ camp but a great area to see leopards, and watching the sun set at Sunset Dam is more than worth experiencing. Try to get a perimeter luxury tent here as they are built high up, overlooking the river, and have en-suite facilites.

Satara. Yes, another large busy camp but the area is full of predators. The S100 dirt road is a great place to spot lions.

Lions Play

In general the southern end of the park is more productive for wildlife sightings but the northern end has less visitors, so sightings can be a more intimate experience. The park is 220 miles long, so you have plenty of space to go at.

Cheetah and Fly

Likes

A safari holiday at your own pace. Only restrictions are the gate open and close times, if you are late to camp expect to be fined. You have around twelve hours a day to plan as you wish. Every room has a grill – sitting with a beer and a steak listening to the bush, does it get any better?

Dislikes

People who do not respect the rules, calling to get animals to look their way or hanging out of their vehicles. The rules are there for the good of the wildlife and the visitors to the park. Traffic jams – encountered quite often mostly at leopard sightings. The roads can become blocked with people hoping for a glimpse. Most often this happens south of Satara camp.

Lilac-breasted Roller

Equipment

A good zoom such as the 100-400 L will cover you for most of your photographic needs, especially on a 1.6x crop camera body such as the 50D. However for birds and distant wildlife a good long prime is a must. I used the 300mm 2.8 with a converter to give me 600mm, which is an amazing combination. However it is worth noting that heat and haze will make longer shots impossible in the middle of the day.

Occasionally I used a wider lens for the odd sunset or panorama image, the view from Olifants camp over the river demands to be taken, and sometimes for wildlife too. As for bodies, it is nice to have a two camera setup, one with a long prime and the other with the zoom. Quite often wildlife walks up to the road, or the car, and you need to be flexible. I used a 50D for long range and my 5D with the 100-400 L for those larger or closer animals.

Leopard

My tip

Talk to people and ask around. We found carrying a large telephoto lens, big white Canon ones, often brought people to us. Some will make silly remarks about the size of your equipment but a few will offer valuable advice or recent sightings. This was brought home to us on the last night when people asking if we were professionals also asked if we had seen the lions at a kill nearby. We hadn’t but the next morning the lions were still there.

Further information

Visit http://www.sanparks.org for booking and camp information. They also have a forum where you will find accurate information from people who live close to the park and visit on a regular basis.

King

Thanks to Sue Berry for her invaluable information prior to my departure and thanks also to Adam Lawler for being a great travel partner.

Photographic Ups and Downs, South Africa

By Melanie

Speciality holiday; arranged by the renowned tour company, Explore.

Trip undertaken August 2005

Price: £2699, with a local payment of £225. (2005 cost)

(Not in their current itinerary.)

Why go?

There were two sentences in the trip dossier that led me to believe this trip was made for me:

‘On this exciting new route we combine visits to private Wildlife Reserves with classic and lesser-known national parks to provide a real contrast of game, birdlife, scenery and flora.’

‘The magnificent Kgalagadi Transfrontier Park – - – - is the real highlight – - – evoking images of shimmering landscapes, rolling red sand dunes, saltpans and vast African skies.

Ideal, I thought, a combination of landscapes (my first love) and wildlife (being a complete novice) with the leader a photography specialist on hand to provide expert tuition and advice.

Itinerary:

Day 1.  Fly from London to Johannesburg.  Collected from airport by tour leader and guides. Drive to and visit the De Wildt Cheetah Conservation Project .  One night, D, B&B at the De Wildt Cheetah Lodge.

Day 2-4. Drive to Pilanesberg National Park, 2 nights D, B&B at the Bakubung Lodge Hotel. Twice daily game drives.

Day 4. Early morning game drive in Pilanesberg, followed by a drive to Kuruman Red Sands Country Lodge. 2 nights D, B&B

Day 5. Raptor Centre visit

Day 6. Drive to Twee Rivieren, Kgalagadi National Park, stopping en route for provisions. All our accommodation in the park is self-catering, with guides producing the main meals. One nights’ cottage accommodation.

Day 7-8. Drive to Nossob, with game viewing on the way. 2 nights’ cottage accommodation.

Day 9 & 10. Mata Mata . Initial plans had been to stay at the Mata Mata rest camp, instead we stayed at the Kalahari Tented Camp

Day 11. Augrabies Falls. One night, bungalow accommodation with catering by the wildlife guides.

(The plan had been to spend 2 nights in Augrabies, but the leader decided to break up the journey to Cape Town with the lure of seeing the spectacle of Namaqua Land in flower.)

Day 12. Drive to Springbok with a one night stay at Annie’s Cottage , breakfast included

Day 13. Drive from Springbok to Cape Town. Cape Town Hollow Hotel for 3 nights. Breakfast included.

Transport from Johnannesburg to Cape Town, including all game drives, was in specially adapted long wheelbase 4X4′s.

Day 14. Cape Peninsula National Park , including Hout Bay,  the Cape of Good Hope and the Jackass penguin colony at Boulders Beach

Day 15. Cape Town and Whale watching  at Hermanus.

Day 16. Table Mountain and home.

(Transport while in Cape Town was in a minibus, with local guide and driver.)

Highlights

Not having been on a safari before it was thoroughly enjoyable to see the animals and birds of Africa in their natural habitat. Among the memorable moments were: seeing a leopard catch the rising sun high on the skyline then watching it walk down the hill to cross the road in front of us,

Observing a female cheetah and her three offspring organise themselves for a hunt, watching raptors fighting, seeing the herds of elephant in Pilanesberg and hearing the lions roaring at night from our beds at Nossob Rest Camp  The animals and birds around the rest camps provided excellent photographic subjects for myself as a wildlife novice, there was more time to pursue them and you were outside the confines of the vehicle.

The colours of the Kgalagadi were incredible, as were many of the landscapes we drove through travelling between the parks. After close to a week in the dust of the desert Annie’s Cottage was a welcome gem, we were able to wash off the grime with a real bath.Cape Town was delightful, full of life and a wealth of photo opportunities.

With Table Mountain on the doorstep of the very comfortable Cape Town Hollow Hotel it was difficult to want more.

Lowlights

The real frustration of the trip was not having the opportunity for landscape photography. Outside the rest camps, picnic areas and the very sparse hide, you are not allowed out of your vehicle. Landscape photography from a vehicle, just isn’t the same as getting out your tripod and on your knees.

Our tour leader, despite the trip description, was not forthcoming with his photographic expertise. The majority of the group felt he had his own agenda, and were of the opinion he was using the trip as reconnaissance to design his own tours. He did not join us for two of our days in Cape Town but went about doing his own thing. When the best wildlife photographic opportunities presented themselves he kept his eye fixed to his own viewfinder and did not return the courtesy of moving seat to allow others to get a chance of a shot.

I was sorry we did not have the planned 2 nights at Augrabies Falls NP, as here there were walking trails and the rock formations were magical. In addition to losing a night in Augrabies, we were told we had missed the flowers in Namaqualand, we did witness many by the roadside making me question that statement.

Having looked forward so much to seeing penguins in the wild Boulders Beach was a disappointment. In order to help protect the colony, wooden walkways have been constructed; there is an entrance building where you pay a fee both of which made the place feel more like a zoo.

Recommendations based on my own experience

If you are planning photography go either with a reputable, dedicated photo guide/operator or do it yourself.

The programme covered some long distances meaning valuable ‘shooting time’ was wasted while ‘on the road’. In the future I would restrict myself to just one or two specific regions with more time to spend getting to know the area, the animals and their movements.

If you visit the Kgalagadi in the winter make sure you take some warm clothes. The trip information we were given was to take a fleece and windproof jacket as the nights could get cold. Despite that on many early morning drives most of us were bitterly cold, that the tour leader was wearing a down jacket tells you something about the organisation of this particular trip!!!

For those travelling independantly, you cannot use credit cards to purchase petrol in South Africa, make sure you have cash to hand for this.

Recommended Photo Gear

At the time of the trip I had Canon 10D and 20D bodies. I left a wide-angle (17-40L) on the 10D and used the 100-400 IS L on the 20D. Now I have the faster 1Ds MKIIN, I would take that. I would love to have a long, fast prime lens, but as primarily a landscape tog, I can’t justify the money. My advice would be to take what you will find most versatile and the best quality you can afford. If you are primarily a wildlife photographer, you don’t need any advice from me! If you have two DSLR bodies, keep your long lens permanantly fixed to one to prevent the ingress of dust onto the sensor.

Dust is a big problem, try to keep your camera covered in the vehicle and if you are not using it than keep it in a zipped bag. Take something to clean your sensor, the Arctic Butterfly is ideal.

In a shared vehicle a beanbag is indispensable. I use this one,  you can position it quickly and can keep it handy by your feet. You may consider the Ergorest.

If space is short you may be well advised to leave your tripod at home, the times you will use it are few and far between.

Peculiar to South Africa are the round pin electrical plugs needed and you will need to take your own adapter UK ,  US with you to the rest camps. Voltage 220/230 volts AC 50Hz. Visitors from the US may need a transformer.

When to go

The African winter (June – September) is best for wildlife. This is the dry season and the animals will congregate towards water. Vegetation for camouflage will be at a minimum.

Will I go again?

Explore generally provide a high quality of service and I suspect this trip was not one of their best. It has now been dropped from their program. I would highly recommend the Kgalagadi National Park, it is a true wilderness and the wildlife watching opportunites can be fantastic. Rest Camps within the National Parks of South Africa are very reasonably priced. I would love to go the Kgalagadi again, but would do the trip independently or with the help of a service such as The Tourist’s Friend .

Namibia and Botswana are next on my wish list of safari destinations, I will take with me much that I learned from this trip.

As it did not live up to its description with the tour leader lacking in enthusiasm for guidance and sharing. In the absence of our tour leader it could have easily been a 4 star trip as the wildlife guides/drivers were excellent.

Recommended Reading

Lonely Planet Wildlife photography: A Guide To Taking Better Pictures by Andy Rouse

The Power of One by Bryce Courtney (fiction)

Lonely Planet Watching Wildlife: Southern Africa