Sabi Sand early AM safari from Protea Hotel Kruger Gate

[Lisbeth]

I have one of the tracker:



The truck and the ranger:

[Mel]

Lis, what were your experiences with this type of guided drive?

[Toko]

Ja, Lis give us a tiny bit of info pleeeeaaase

[Lisbeth]

It is difficult to say.... We had an all inclusive "package" so I do not know the price of a drive.

- First of all, you cannot choose the schedule.

- The continuous noise of the radio bothered me, but we did get very close to a group of lions driving right through the bush outside the road. (you know how much I love lions ) On some drives we saw almost nothing. I do not remember that ever stopped for a bird

- Both of us agreed that we preferred the self drive.

- There was too much eating too, but that has nothing to do with the drive The sighting that I loved the most, was a group of dwarf mongooses playing outside our safari tent

- Sundowner (which you paid for at the end). Fa was not feeling well and was cold even if it was quite hot and they had some great big raincoats

[Toko]

So from where did you do the drives?

[Lisbeth]

It was a private Lodge in the Thornybush reserve...I think. It was in 2007/08 and our first trip to SA. I don't remember the name of the Lodge. We stayed for three nights.

[Mel]

So, staying at a private game reserve AND not having particularly good drives...
And that despite the fact that you must have had 6 of them during your stay.

[Lisbeth]

Yep! Fa was in bed for the first two days and I skipped a couple of the afternoon drives, because you saw very little. It is not worth the price in my opinion....any of it

We did three days of self driving in Kruger on the same trip and enjoyed it much more

[Mel]

I agree that private game reserves are not worth the money. But not because of the game drives.
We have had good experiences with that.

Going on a guided drive, it all depends on the luck of who is in your group, as in:
Do they want to see the same stuff as me or are they just after the Big 5.

And also on the luck of having passionate and skilled rangers / trackers.

If I had a week in Kruger, I'd do such a drive. Even for about R1100 per person.
I'd take my luck and I'd still have enough time to do self-drives for the rest of the week.

[Lisbeth]