A leisurely 13 day train trip behind steam to Kruger Park*

[steamtrainfan]

Having waved goodbye to Flutterby, Bush Brat and Mommo it is now time for me to stoke up my fire and get up a lovely head of steam for a leisurely 13 day trip behind a steam engine to Kruger Park. This train leaves from Leopard Rock station at 05:00 on 15 August and winds her way down to Nelspruit then up to Phabeni Gate and finally down to Crocodile Bridge via Skukuza and Lower Sabie where we will be spending Thursday and Friday nights. The rest of the intinerary is as shown below.
We will return to Pretoria at approximately 15:00 on 27 August.

Here is a pic of the locomotive waiting for all the passengers who hopefully will all be boarding tomorrow night. This will be our motive power for the first part of our journey.


I hope I will remember to take and include pics of the other locomotives that will be joining us.

Unfortunately we do not have internet access on board so the rest of this TT will have to wait until we get back.

So for now sit back and relax whilst reading other Travel Tales and stay safe.

C U on 28 August 2013.

[steamtrainfan]

It is now time to start stocking up the kitchen car and start preparing some meals.

We are meeting my brother and his SO who hail from Durban at Crocodile Bridge tomorrow afternoon to celebrate my 67 birthday in style. What more could I ask for. In the Kruger Park with a nice braai on the go, my boet and his SO, my SO and the peace and tranquillity of Crocodile Bridge camp.

[Amoli]

We made it just in time to board your train STF...

Hope it's the right one - ..



I see it filled up with water and the the men were stoaking the fire... yip.. yipee, we are on the move.

The kids got their glasses on for the coal dust... -O



Tickety, tick... tickety, tock. What a wonderful sound.

I peep out the windows and see some empty stations along the way. I remember a time when they were competing with their well kept gardens to win prizes.



As we passed through Nelspruit the railway line is close to the river. It is even more stunning than from the road above.





We have entered the park.... ready for your sightings now...

[Sprocky]

It was great to finally meet the man behind the steam today!!

I had a short meet with STF and his SO at Sable Hide this morning. One word of warning,...be prepared for some amazing and totally unique pics!!! I'll say no more, STF can brag over gere once they are home.

STF, lets hope that I sold the AW concept well enough to your boet. He seemed very excited about the forum, now lets see if he joins???

Thanks for the short and very pleasant meet.

[steamtrainfan]

We are back home safe and sound.

Thank you to everyone for your good wishes.

Amoli - fantastic pics of and from the train - thanks so much.

We first have to sort through 1215 photos and then carry on with this TT.

Some of the highlights:

Crocodile and Impala.

Two elephant.

Two Tawny Eagles.

A Tawny Eagle and a Black Backed Jackal.

Two times Saddle Bill Stork and Plover

Saddle Bill Stork and juvenile Fish Eagle.

Hope this whets your appetite to stay on board.

Chat to you later.

[steamtrainfan]

Hiya Sprocky. What a pleasure to meet you at such a lovely venue. Very interesting chatting to you and also to that German guy with a bazooka for a camera.

My boet does seem very keen to join SAGR. His name will be Fish Eagle , if not already taken.

They had an amazing leopard sighting right next to the road. I have asked him to send me the pics which he "hopefully" will do.

[steamtrainfan]

Thanks everybody for the warm welcome back home.

I think we have more bird pics than animal pics this time around but we did have a few very unusual interactions between some of them.

[steamtrainfan]

Thursday 15 August - Pretoria to Crocodile Bridge.

Thanks to some bright spark with very limited technical expertise, who forgot to set the alarm clock , the whole show only got on the road at 06:15 instead of 05:00. However in true railway tradition this is the norm and the trip down to Malelane was made in no hurry to make up lost time. Arrival at Malelane Gate was 11:30. Six hours from Pretoria to Malelane must be some sort of record for a train.

Even before entering the gate we had some sightings from the bridge.

The resident crocodile.

Oooopps - Flickr does not seem to be copying the HTML B.B. code for some reason. Another technical glitch - sorry for the delay.

[steamtrainfan]

Right we have the right of way now that Flickr has come on board.

At Malelane we changed locomotives, as the garratt that brought us here was too heavy for the light load railway track in Kruger, to a lighter locomotive , the19D class.


As mentioned before we had some sightings from the bridge.

The resident crocodile.


Saddle-billed stork.


And now the first of our highlights. As Joan pressed the button to take another photo of the SBS a plover flew in to harass him resulting in the SBS taking a swipe at the plover with his long beak. Talk about taking the pic at the right second.


Once through all the entrance formalities we headed up the H3 to Afsaal where we would stop for lunch.

A couple of kms from Afsaal we came across a couple of cars and on asking around a friendly guy pointed out some cheetah lying under a tree about 200 metres into the bush. Not easy to photograph but as one sat up Joan fired off a shot.


After lunch we took the H2-2 and S114 to Biyamiti Weir to try and find some action there. All we found was a fish eagle in a tree. Once again as Joan took the pics he gave a lovely long call. Three pics at different stages of his call.






We then headed off on the S139 and S114 to Crocodile Bridge where we had arranged to meet my brother Joe and his S.O. Yvonne.

On the way we got a shot of a LBR.


Two woolly-necked storks in a tree. Remember the story about "Willy next door"


Arrived at Crocodile Bridge and allocated hut number 8 - very nice - all newly renovated. Some pics of the interior.




Once settled in we got around to the serious business of celebrating my birthday in style. Braai, beef, bush and coke. Ha, bet you thought I was going to say something else beginning with a B.

Managed to get a shot of the nightly patroller.


After the delayed early start and long ride we fell into bed exhausted.

[steamtrainfan]

16 AUGUST - PART 1 - ROUND AND ABOUT CROCODILE BRIDGE.

Before we start I must warn you that we have some 130 photos to share with you over the next 25 episodes and I must be finished before 25 September. By my calculations that is about one episode per day so be prepared to be bombarded with photos and stories.

Our route for this morning was H4-2, S130 and S137 to Ntandanyathi Hide. Then S28 and H4-2 to Lower Sabie. Back to Hippo pool via H4-2 and to camp.
Afternoon drive - H4-2, H5, S108 and S25 back to camp.

Just outside camp we saw our first Kruger dawn and what an amazing greeting we got.


Not sure what this is but he looked good in the early morning light.


A White-backed vulture about to take off.


Pearl-spotted owlet.


A few minutes later we came across a second Pearl-spotted owlet.


A first for us - the Purple Roller.


He then took off and Joan managed to catch coming towards us.


At the hide there were a few hippo in the pool but half hidden behind some bushes. There was a hammerkop very busy flying backwards and forwards building a nest. I took a lot of shots of him so busy and this was the best.


A gymnogene busy flying from dead tree to dead tree. Despite being straight into the sun Joan managed this shot.


This lady steenbok looked at us as if we had caught her in the act of doing something wrong.


Before calling at Lower Sabie we stopped at Sunset Dam.

Black-winged stilt.


It was strange to see how the hippo wandered amongst the crocodiles.


Two hippo having a friendly chat.


Coming up next - the trip back to Crocodile Bridge and the afternoon drive.