Jan,

despite it was already pitch dark Kai should have got some good shots. My video came out reasonable.
Will copy in a link as soon as they are edited; Kai does shoot in RAW so it asks for editing.

15.04.09 drive from Sabi Sands to Louis Trichard (Makhatu) up north

The drive was on excellent tarred roads all the way up to L.T.
The guesthouse we booked in advance for that one-night-stay:
http://www.mountainfarmlodge.com/

Excellent choice!

The owners are Dutch. She was involved in community work at the beginning of the new century for a couple of years and fell in love with SA. When she returned to the Netherlands in 2003 she and her husband decided to cancel their Dutch life and migrate to SA - well almost cancelled: they still have their health insurance in the Netherlands

So they sold everything and searched for a farm to buyout the owner. They ended up in L.T. and have settled in that wonderful piece of South Africa.

Based on her knowledge regarding community work she decided to not only open a high-end guesthouse but also educate, train and involve women of 3 different tribes of the area in order to get really good art and craft items. She had to start from Zero as these people didn't know what a 90° angle means nor did they pay attention to centimeters etc. They were used to work on an "circa" basis. So she trained a couple of women which act now as teacher as well as quality control. These tribes women now do everything themselves: Design, production, puchasing and research on material, fabrics etc.
The website is still rather "under construction" but they are upgrading it soon.
The farm staff work and live on site as it is also a working farm. The couple supports the education of 4 of the farm staff children: They go to a private school in L.T. (transportation, school fees).

People who are interested can be taken to the villages where these arts and crafts are made and chat with the ladies. Furthermore the landscape is excellent for hiking and biking besides visits to cultural villages. The owners have staff on site who include prof. tourism guides.

We had a very nice accommodation: chalet for self-catering which we didn't so we had a wonderful dinner in Marcelle's and Aaart's company and talked into the night which we couldn't afford really as we were due to leave the next morning very early for the SA/Botswana Borderpost. E.g. we were told that the former owner of the farm lived in that very same building they are living in now. But that owner had a huge wall incl. electrified fence around his place. He paid his staff 100 ZAR PER MONTH and provisions were limited to bones from the owner's table plus some veggies which were grown on site. The owner still believes black people are a race in between animals and humans. You all can imagine how lively the discussion was that night.
It's unbelievable. But we ourselves witnessed while driving rural parts of South Africa pick ups driven by a white man and the black staff was seated on the platform. It's obviously still considered "normal" by white people in rural areas to treat blacks like rubbish.

We had lots of used clothes with us and we handed a full suitcase over to the head of farm staff at the presence of others in order to share it based on needs or size.

It's somehow strange to leave a place where one felt almost at home.............But that happens to us most of the time.

Next morning we drove off for the last leg of the drive to Pontdrift Borderpost where we were expected by 12.00h in order to check out of SA and check in Botswana.

Drive was pleasant on tarred roads all the way so we reached the border at 11.00h/16.04.09.

Check out/check in was hassle free, onloaded the luggage for the 4 night stay at NITANI/Northern Tuliblock (wonderful: 4 nights in one place!), left car in a secure area at the borderpost, hopped into a "cage" which is meant to be a cable car and crossed the Limpopo river together with our belongings.
The river looked muddy and the occasional croc led to the hope on my side that they maintain that thing on a regular basis

On the other side we waited a bit and 30 min later the NITANI car showed up to fetch us.
http://www.nitani.co.za/

We watched several MASHATU vehicles showing up in order to fetch their guests. And YES - also Mashatu has the tracker in the back! STRANGE......

The transfer to the Lodge lasted for approx. 2 hours at slow pace - tracks were quite bumpy. Not much to see during that ride except the wonderful landscape and a sand snake (that's for Jan ).

We got the "honeymoon suite" at the far end of the wooden raised walkways which connect the chalets to the main area, spa, bar deck and I pointed out to the manager that the "noise" they might hear from a honeymoon couple is somewhat different to the noise a couple makes after 27 years of marriage

Other guests were a father with his 2 teenage children. All 3 of them were accompanied by a prof. photographer and they did a 3 day workshop there. Another chalet got occupied by a lady from SA who works in the States and her American colleague who spent the first holiday in Africa.

The 2 ladies and us made a great team - lots of jokes, big loughs and common interests. The other 4 guests got their own vehicle as well and went deeply into photography incl. macro. T

Game was not that great in that area but the bush experience was fantastic! A leopard had put his impala kill into a dead leadwood fork opposite the lodge entrance.....
The elephants (a breeding herd) came to our plunge pools for drinks but were extremely stressed. All femals showed that typical fluid left and right of their heads. As soon as vehicles tried to approach them slowly they started trumpeting, flapping their ears and shaking their head. So despite that was a very impressive herd the encounters were disappointing. But the vital fact that they were so stressed out is sad because is it a sign for traumatic experiences with humans

All the other animals were also freaked out as soon as a car showed up. Absolutely strange. But Zimbabwe is close so they might have gone thru nightmares..............
Very nice spa, each and every meal was made to order for the time requested. Royal service!

We met with the owner, Shane Pinchen, who helped Gareth Patterson with George Adamson's last 3 lions to be released in that area at the beginning of the 90ies. Shane is very much into conservation and geology as well as stargazing. He lives 5 kms from the lodge and came over every night for dinner with us. We had so much fun and got lots of information on the area and all which is involved. Excellent company!

When we left after 4 or almost 5 days of game drives, sun downers, star uppers ( ) the 2 ladies got up early and kissed us goodbye in their night gowns as they had 2 more days at Nitani.

On 20 April around 09.00h we did the Limpopo crossing again back into SA - again the cable car did its duty without failure, loaded the car and drove off towards Pafuri, the most northern entrance to Kruger National park.
Around midday we reached the park entrance, paid the park fee (560ZAR for 2 pax, one car for 2 nights/days) and stopped at the car park because Kai wanted to jump onto the row in the back with his cam equipment which offers him the opportunity to jump from left to right in order to take pictures.

At that stage we did not know about the problem we were just facing which ruined our self-drive Kruger experience............

to be continued.....

Sounds great, so far, Pippa. I really miss SA... My only time in Botswana was ten years ago... I remember the country being so quiet and peaceful. I absolutely love Kenya, but we all could do without the politics, corruption, etc..

I'm curious to know if you had heard anything on the Kruger 'Cheetah Photographic Survey', while in the park? Since we will be conducting a simllar survey, I'm interested in the magnitude of their advertising... let me know if you if / how you learned about it.

'Cheers!'

TC

TC
They still have the leaflets in the park offices: Cheetah and Wilddog photographic survey.
It's either 5th Cheetah and 3rd Wilddog census or vv.

Pretty eye catching leaflets. Did take it but littered when we left because we did not see ONE cat in Kruger. Nor a wilddog. Kruger is NOT AT ALL our destination. We have visited at least 5 times. To disappointing time wise. It's nice to drive around and have all these tidy, clean large and friendly rest camps. But I don't just want to drive for tzhe drive's sake.
Even the S100 was disappointing.

Thank you for the information, Pippa. I always seem to leave out the poor 'wild dog', when mentioning the Kruger survey... of which, I actually did see while in Kruger, but not yet in Tsavo. Sorry to hear you didn't much.

Start the engine after Kai has sorted out all his stuff............KLACK KLACK KLACK KLACK........nothing else.
Damn car! Pafuri is quite out of any major route. NO NETWORKE! NONE! 12.00h and nice guys on duty in the parks office - thanks god! I was allowed to call "roadside assistance" to inform First Car Rental that their car just gave up its duty by making just that klack-noise. Obviously the starter decided to have a rest. Okay - no problem. They will send a regular car (no 4x4) up to Pafuri. Excellent! We get a Corolla or whatever and exchange the car against a 4x4 next day in Mopane. No problem - DO I THINK for 2 and a half hours. Then the tow company calls me - via the park office - in order to state that they now load the car and drive off towards Pafuri. BUT THEY ARE STILL IN POLOKWANE - a 5-6 hours drive away from our location!
All of a sudden I forget all my decent business English and without being able to stop it out of my mouth came a more "casual" English. I asked the guy to stop immediately and ask the roadside assistant guy to call me.
There is no accommodation at Pafuri, the gate closes at 06.00pm and that guy is still a mere 5 hours drive away .......
I simply could not comprehend that these guys don't know about they Kruger Park facilities nor about the distances and therefore driving times..........

A lot of IF's and WHEN's were discussed and finally we agreed on a private transfer by one of the park officials to Chingwedzi where we had booked the chalet for the night.
We were given the confirmation the replacement comes at 08.00/08.30h next morning so that we can start with our Kruger safari. Good. Fine. But lots of doubts arose taking into consideration the distances and the fact that the gate opens at 06.00h and within the Park a max. of 50kmh speed limit.

Anyway - we paid the park official a fortune in South African terms plus a full fuel tank and after 2,5 hours drive we reached Chingwedzi not long before the gate closed. Amazingly all our luggage was sqeezed into that kind of polo rolling disco: one suitcase on top of monster loudspeakers. We jammed into the seats - Kai in the rear felt like cargo............but we made it.
.
The accommodation was quite run down, bathroom a bit filthy but for one night okay....

We were quite exhausted - stress obviously has an impact.....- opened a package of "lightly salted chips" and a bottle of Meerlust Rubicon and after one glas we were knocked out.

Alarmclock went off at 07.00h next morning.
We informed the rest camp reception that we were expecting a car bla bla bla and went to have breakfast.

At 08.30h we went back to our accommodation and played all kinds of possibilities which could have ocurred to that truck/tow driver.

At 10.45h we noticed a white Honda CVR driving around obviously looking for something. That was our replacement car.
The paperwork took almost 30 Minutes. After we had left I felt sorry for the guy who didn't do anything wrong except following the directions which he got from the boss. Of course I was more than miffed based on the trouble shooting. We rented from First Car Rental/Sixt because we thought in case of breakdown it would be much quicker to get replacement than from a "local" car rental company.

Anyway - we missed an evening drive and the morning drive. So started our Kruger Safari at noon the second day and didn't see much.

Next rest camp was Satara which is "famous" for big cat sightings. But not for us! Here we again didn't see much.
Satara has got several restaurant options incl. take-away, a supermarket, curio shop, fuel station, post office.................
Chingwedzi has also some recreatation options but not as sophisticated as Satara.

The bungalows at Satara are much nicer than the ones at Chingwedzi. Every bungalow has got its own fire place (that seems to be mandatory at any of the kruger restcamps) and the sight was great after dark: all these tiny fires.............Surprisingly it was not noisy at all (only a handful of kids ran around...) but I can imagine during holiday season it might become annoying because these restcamps are frequented by families for obvious reasons. For families it's absolutely wonderful. But I don't want to be locked up in a chalet surrounded by armadas of families with children........who do lack mostly any kind of behaviour/rules.

We did not went for dinner as we had still half the bottle of Rubicon from Chingwedzi plus one more - our goal was to empty all the bottles before we finish the trip because we nowadays are not allowed to take a bottle in hand luggage and I did not want to risk a bottle to be broken while in my suitcase!

I just went to the take-away for toasted sandwiches and salad. We had a very nice dinner on our terrasse and our mood improved by the glass.

Next morning at 05.00h the alarmclock went off, packed our luggage and at 5 to 6 we were queueing at the gate so that we could start our early morning drive as soon as the gate opened.

Sightings: Gazelles, here and there a Giraffe, other plains game..............NO CAT! Not even an african wildcat.

At around 12.00h we left the park at Paul Kruger Gate because our next destination was LONDOLOZI/Sabi Sands.........http://www.londolozi.com/

to be continued............