Wildlife Safaris

Incredible South Africa Honeymoon With the Help of Wildlife Safaris

My wife and I were celebrating our honeymoon in South Africa, and wanted to cap it off with a 4 day safari in Kruger. We selected Wildlife Safaris, and were not disappointed. We spent 4 weeks in Tanzania prior to South Africa, and went on several shorter safaris, so our expectations were rather high. We made our reservations pretty far in advance, and there was occasionally delays in getting responses to our questions, but everything went without a hitch. Our guide was Nik, and he's been going to Kruger for his entire life, and spent most of those years as a guide with Wildlife Safaris. We were picked up promptly at our hotel when communicated, and made the 5+ hour drive to Kruger, though there were a couple breaks built in, so it wasn't a bad drive. It was actually quite interesting to see the terrain changes throughout the drive.

We arrived to the park around 1:30 pm, and an afternoon game drive revealed lions and a leopard; not bad for the first few hours. It should be said that February is possibly the worst time to go to Kruger, as it is very hot, rainy, and the grass is high. A drought made conditions the opposite, so we were able to see lots of wildlife. In fact, we saw all of the Big 5 on our second day, all before lunch! (Warning: Results not necessarily normal and guides can't make animals appear, even if clients wish it, though Nik seemingly had Superman powers and could see through trees to spot game). We did the safari in an air conditioned minivan. At first I was skeptical, and worried it would constrict views, but that was not the case at all and the AC was a nice bonus (Nik said something about larger groups using the traditional open trucks). Just open the window to take a picture, and then close it after. An evening game drive was included in the price for the second day, which is put together and operated by Kruger staff with 20 or so passengers. It was ok, though we didn't really see anything new, and the night viewing was mostly a bust (a few passengers were given a spotlight to find animals, but it's hard).

The schedule was typically a very early morning game drive for 2-3 hours (we started at 5:30 am, though it can start as early as 4:30 am, or as late as 6:30 am, depending on when the front gates open), breakfast at a camp restaurant, a game drive until lunch, a "siesta" for a couple hours, then an evening game drive for a couple hours before the gates closed at 6:30 pm. Dinner together followed at around 7 with the group at the camp restaurant.

We stayed two nights at the Skakuza camp and one at Berg-en-dal. Skakuza was larger with more amenities, including free Wifi at the restaurant. It is also very centrally located and lots of drives can start from there. Berg-en-Dal was at the far Southern end and more remote, but the bungalows were larger and made the drive back to the airport quicker. But, it had no Wifi. Both places had AC and en suite bathrooms. Overall, the food and the accommodation was better than expected, and we were both very pleased. From what I gathered, Skakuza is often utilized, with the second site more variable, though it's all based on park availability. Staying inside the park was key, since we got such an early start and beat everyone coming in from outside the park. Our favorite early morning moment was coming across a pack of wild dogs in the middle of the road and watching them play with each other for 10 minutes, without another car in sight.

On the last day, we left the park around 9:30 after an early game drive and breakfast, and got to airport pretty quickly, no later than 3 pm. They advertise a 4-4:30 arrival, but we had no problem with the early arrival. So, no worries if you have a flight to catch in the evening.

Nik was a fantastic guide; a true animal lover who had great information, not only about the animals and the park, but anything else about South Africa we had questions on. We had a nice small group for the 4 days, and had some fun and enjoyable meals and conversations together. We can't speak highly enough of Nik and the whole team at Wildlife Safaris, and want to thank them all for helping create a wonderful finale to our honeymoon in South Africa. We'll be passing their name along to anyone we know that heads to Kruger, which was by the way, the best and our favorite park we saw in our journeys across Tanzania and South Africa.