Browns in Kruger September 2019

[Bushcraft]

Hey Guys

Time for a new TT and I’m going to push it out rather fast as usual, that’s if I survive the 4 pic, 24 hour ban story.

This was our only family Kruger trip of the year due to rising costs in SA, so we were hanging to go and Kruger didn’t disappoint sighting wise, however like any Kruger holiday, it seemed to be over too quickly.

As we could only afford 1 Kruger trip this year we had to pick which school holidays to book and because it’s always a nightmare booking for July, we decided on the September holidays and the final trip was as per below

19th Jozini Dam
20th, 21st, 22nd and 23rd Lower Sabie
24th, 25th and 26th Skukuza
27th Talamati
28th Biyamiti

The weather was very weird with a roasting hot first 2 days, then it was freezing cold for few days and then a warmer last day, so a mixed bag.

As usual we stuffed up plenty photo opportunities which bothers me, but none us utilize a camera outside of KNP, so the 1st few days were a learning curve again and my old 550d is battling in my hands, therefore the Cow and Rat’s point and shoot cameras as well as the odd cell phone pic saved the day on many occasions.

We caught up with some familiar friends/wildies during the trip, Penny and Bobby, but unfortunately never managed to fit in a breakfast or lunch as they only arrived in the park when we were moving to bush camps. I also had a work colleague in the park who had major car issues so this pops up at times during our trip.

The rhino population is again a concern for me and they were missing from many of the usual spots, however I’m going to omit all rhino sightings even though I don’t believe it makes much of a difference. We never found cheetah this trip which was a bummer as this has only happened to us once before in the last 25 family trips which is since I have been keeping records. I have since found out that my work colleague and Penny & Bobby also never found cheetah in just shy of the 2 weeks that they were in the park which is a potential concern.

The normal a lack of maintenance and management in certain camps was obvious and improvement on all fronts is desperately needed for longevity. Marloth Park is starting to look like a viable alternative as one gets way more for your money and it seems peaceful at night when compared to internal camps during holiday season. It was also very crowded, so the last 2 days in bush camps was needed at the time, however Kruger is still a special place and the trip was one of our better Kruger family holidays.

To be continued

[Bushcraft]

19th Home to Jozini Dam

We initially had a hut booked at Lower Sabie for this night, but cancelled as Hawkeyes is in matric and had to check papers or something, so we couldn’t pull her out of school, therefore we cancelled Lower Sabie and booked an overnight spot at Nkonkoni which is on Jozini Dam, only 4 hours from our place and 30km from the Swazi border.

All were finished with commitments at around 9am, we hit the road just before 10am and arrived at Nkonkoni at around 2pm. Nkonkoni is actually marketed as a tiger fishing camp with direct access to the dam and it’s unfenced, but it has plenty general game, including the odd mental elephant and hippo, however no land predators, so it’s generally safe to walk around which is cool.

We immediately started to get the “Kruger fever” as we arrived at reception because warties charged out of the car park and a large impala lily was in bloom next to us.

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The owners were at reception and they informed us that we were the only people in camp this evening so we had the entire place to ourselves, therefore my teeth started to hang out immediately.

An army of warties were parking off in front of our unit and they got a big skrik on our arrival, but soon calmed down when they noticed that we weren’t paying any attention to them. I still refer to the Rats as such, but they are all young adults now and even the youngest, Albert who’s 13, has done 25 KNP trips and many other trips to other parks and bush camps, however I still had to take the initial load of suitcases pasted the warties to prove that all was safe.

The huts are simply 1 room with 5 beds, a bathroom with outside shower attached and a private braai boma.

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[Bushcraft]

I was soon bored after unpacking, so suggested a walk around camp to the pool area and the main boma where Hawkeyes took delight in playing the ass.

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I nagged the clan to pose for a photo outside the boma even though teenagers can get faulty when a camera is aiming their direction. On the left is Bushpig (15) in one of her rock band shirts, Hawkeyes (18) in an Africa Wild shirt, but with her cap pushed against her ears giving a wingnut appearance, the Cow in her tiger cross zebra dress which drives me mental and then Albert (13) in her new craze fitness attire.

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We had a small drama on returning to our unit because Vervets had raided the place in our absence and 2 glasses were broken, our bin had been emptied onto the floor and the entire bag of sugar for the trip had been ripped open and scattered on the grass in front of the unit, so a clean-up mission had to take place and the Cow got a major pelican about her coffee/sugar requirement.

Albert, like me, has too much energy so soon we were off on patrol around camp again to photograph some of the locals, while the others relaxed at the unit. The warties were easy to approach, but we had to do a major stalk mission, while I was telling “war stories”, to get the nyala pic.

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[RogerFraser]

A browns TR .

Looks like a nice itinerary planned .The stop over looks nice

we have very few photos of our rugrats when they were teenagers

[Bushcraft]

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We then decided to cruise down to the waterhole on the property to see if we could find something else, but as we pushed our way through the bushes to the water’s edge we found tons of elephant dung, so Albert blurted “No way, that’s elephant poo!” and started to back track.

I looked around and couldn’t see any elephants, but then said “they are called the Grey Ghost” and this got Albert back tracking further, so I picked up the two drier looking turds to take back to the unit to show the others, but this was too much for Albert who took off running while shouting “Dad’s picking up poo!”

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I then decided to see if Albert who was hiding on the unit’s veranda could catch a flying turd, but she did some belly dancer snake type manoeuvre and dodged the turd that exploded on the veranda which I thought was hilarious, however the Cow came outside and greased me “That’s disgusting, pick it up now!”

To be continued

19th Home to Jozini Dam continued


After my long lip turd clean up I was bored again and it was only around 4:30pm and a little too early to braai, so I suggested a drive down to the main dam which all were keen for.


Nkonkoni isn’t a very large place and one could probably drive around the entire property in half an hour, but there aren’t many sign boards, however it was about our 10th overnight visit, so I wasn’t concerned and drove along as if I knew where we were going, but soon realized that the maze of dirt roads didn’t look too familiar “left or right here?” and there was no response, so I guessed and continued on.

As the bush thinned out I realized that things still didn’t look familiar and we were on the wrong side of the dam, so I calmly said

“The dam is on the left and it’s meant to be on the right”

The Cow was silent as she sussed the scene out while I waited for a drama, but then some zebra popped up, a reedbuck with faulty body language had us all laughing and then some waterbuck, so this distracted from the fact we were slightly lost.

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[Bushcraft]

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I then suggested a stroll down to the water’s edge as there were 2 ostriches on the other side and I wanted to get closer for a pic but first the Rats were forced to pose for another pic.

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The Cow and Hawkeyes weren’t keen for the walk and waited at the car while Bushpig, Albert and I went on the adventure down to the water, however I hit the brakes about 10m from the water as there was some very fresh turd that looked suspect and after a careful look around we spotted a hippo cruising along the bank just up from us, so the younger Rats decided that a hasty retreat back to the car was the best option. I hung back and tried to get pics of the ostrich but they looked like black/grey dots so I gave up and also headed back to the car.

It was nearly 5:30pm now and time for a braai, so we fiddled our way back through the confusing dirt roads until things looked familiar, but stopped for a few pics on the way.

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[Bushcraft]

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I haven’t drunk any alcohol in at least 8 months and prefer the new legal “green tea” which can be made into “green biscuits”, however I had purchased a bottle of red wine for this evening, so I chased a biscuit with red wine while starting a massive wood fire and the Cow fiddled around in the kitchen while the Rats took turns braving the outdoor shower, but eventually all pulled into the boma

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[Bushcraft]

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After supper I decided to scan around with my torch but only spotted hundreds of green eyes in the grass reflecting back which caused me to blink a few times as I first thought that I had chowed too many “green biscuits”, however I then realised that it was hundreds of spiders, so took off on a mission with the clan to show them, but the clan wasn’t impressed with the fact that our unit was surrounded by spiders and ducked back to the veranda.

It had been a long day and we had another long day coming so before 10pm all had ducked to bed.

We haven’t stopped over at Nkonkoni for a few years and it’s not going to be everybody’s cup of tea, but for us it’s a perfect stopover and we will definitely look at doing it again next year.

To be continued

[Bushcraft]

A browns TR .

Looks like a nice itinerary planned .The stop over looks nice

we have very few photos of our rugrats when they were teenagers

Hey Roger

I nearly didn't see you in the middle there

Ya, it's a good spot for 1 night

[The Cow]

Yay, you finally started