Day 9: Johannesburg to Kruger National Park (Singita Sweni)

Day 9:  Johannesburg to Kruger National Park (Singita Sweni)

I woke up at 7:30 AM, showered up and packed up my stuff.  We went downstairs for breakfast at 8:30 AM.  It was a nice buffet.  I had pancakes (more like crepes), fruit, danishes, biltong, mango and OJ.  At 9:30 AM, we met our van out front of the hotel to take us to a smaller private airport for our next adventure.  We were on the road 5 minutes and Hannah realized she forgot her earrings so we had to turn around and go back to the hotel.  Zack ran up to the room and got them for Hannah.  We loaded back up and drove off to the private airport to take our Federal Air flight to our next safari in the Kruger National Park.  We hung out in the lounge for about 30 minutes and had a Sparberry drink and gummies.  We then got on our 9 seat propeller flight which was a private charter so we were the only ones on the plane.  We took off around 11 AM and landed at 12:15 PM on a "Dirt Road" runway in the middle of nowhere.  A jeep met us at the runway and we took at 45 minute drive to our Singita Sweni Lodge hotel.  Along the way we saw Zebra, wildebeast, Antelope and even a parade of African Hissing Ants on the side of the road before arriving at 1 PM at our hotel.  They took us to our "rooms" which were very nice.  Each room had glass doors that opened to the river and had beautiful amenities.  We relaxed in the room until 2:30 PM and then went to the main area where we had lunch.  I had a corn and coconut soup, a shrimp/salmon and potato dish and chicken skewers.  High tea started at 3 PM and I had a few pieces of Biltong but was stuffed from lunch.  Around 3:30 PM we loaded up our jeep with Solomon, our guide and a tracker who sat on a jump seat in the front of the jeep.  Along the way we saw some birds, Kudos, impalas, zebras and crocodiles.  We then tried to track a Cheetah but we couldn't find it.  The terrain was much more rocky then in Botswana, especially when we went off road.  We came across two different sets of Elephants blocking the road.  One group was kicking the dirt to loosen it up and then using their trunks to spread it on them to help keep the bugs off.  The second group didn't seem pleased that we were there and we had to go around them.  They actually followed us for a little bit.  We saw a beautiful sunset and then continued on our safari in the dark with the tracker using a spot light to point things out.  The tracker was amazing and was able to spot a small jackal in the dark and two lions hanging out in the tall grass.  After that we continued to search in the dark but couldn't find anything else.  Once the sun went down it definitely cooled off a lot.  We stopped at one point and looked up at the sky that had more stars than I have ever seen at night (Southern Cross) and listened to the various sounds of frogs, bugs, etc...  We got back to the hotel around 6:30 PM and hung out around the fire pit in the main area for awhile.  I had a Gypsy Mask beer (craft beer from Capetown) and then we sat by the pool while Zack swam for 30 minutes.  Around 7 PM we sat down for dinner.  I had an Asian broth, soft shell crabs and a red wine/apple/coconut sorbet along with a couple of more beers (Drifter and a Punk Rocker; both craft beers from Cape Town).  We were all very tired so we headed back to our room around 9 PM and got ready for bed.