Family Safari – South Africa and Swaziland

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September 11, 2018

This post is an overview of our family safari in South Africa and Swaziland. It was a great trip and we covered a lot of ground in two weeks. This was enough time to see an amazing amount of wildlife, and also to spend some time seeing non-animal scenery. Each section below includes a link to a more detailed post about each part of our trip.

Johannesburg

FAMILY SAFARI – JOHANNESBURG

We planned two nights in Johannesburg to give us a full day to recover from the marathon sixteen hour flight from the U.S. to South Africa. As it turned out, due to the evening arrival into Johannesburg, we got a great night’s sleep the first night, and had enough energy for a full day’s sightseeing the next day.

There is plenty to do and see in Johannesburg, including the Apartheid Museum and Soweto township tours, but we opted to drive a little way out of town to the Cradle of Humankind. Around 40% of the world’s human ancestor fossils have been found in this area and many of these are on display in a very interesting and educational setting. We also visited the Sterkfontein Caves, the site of some important fossil finds.

Maropeng Visitor Centre – Cradle of Humankind, South Africa

Entabeni Safari Conservancy

FAMILY SAFARI – ENTABENI SAFARI CONSERVANCY

After our travel recovery time in Johannesburg, we were excited to begin our family safari in earnest in the Entabeni Safari Conservancy. This was a good place for Lachlan’s first safari experience as it doesn’t have a lot of predators like the Kruger area camps, so the game viewing is a bit more low key. However there are still plenty of animals to see and the scenery is spectacular.

Accommodation options are also a bit cheaper than the Kruger area lodges, and with a location between Johannesburg and Kruger National Park, the Entabeni Safari Conservancy makes an ideal add-on to a Kruger visit, or a quick getaway from Johannesburg if you can’t make it all the way to Kruger.

Entabeni Safari Conservancy

The Panorama Route

FAMILY SAFARI – THE PANORAMA ROUTE

Before we plunged into the full-on Kruger wildlife experience, we took a day to check out the famous Panorama Route. The Blyde River Canyon provides some amazing scenery, definitely worth a day away from the animals.

For this sightseeing day and our next day’s visit to Kruger National Park, we based ourselves in the small town of Hazyview, just outside the park. We stayed at the Rissington Inn, which we would definitely recommend.

The Three Rondavels, Panorama Route

Kruger National Park

FAMILY SAFARI – KRUGER NATIONAL PARK

On our second day in Hazyview we got up very early, picked up a picnic breakfast prepared by our hotel and drove to Kruger National Park. We arrived at the gate just before it opened, ready for a full day’s self-drive safari action. Although we didn’t see any lion, leopard or rhino, we saw plenty of other wildlife. We actually saw more than we expected, considering we had to spot the game ourselves, without a guide. The highlight was seeing elephants right next to the road on multiple occasions.

One day was just enough time to get a taste of Kruger National Park. Spending multiple days here, staying at a camp (or multiple camps) inside the park would be a great experience, with a much less expensive price tag than the private game reserves. This is probably the way we will go next time we visit South Africa.

Elephant – Kruger National Park

Manyeleti Game Reserve

FAMILY SAFARI – MANYELETI GAME RESERVE

The highlight of our trip was three days on the Manyeleti Game Reserve. This reserve is right next to Kruger National Park, with no fence between the two places, so animals can roam freely between them. We saw four of the Big Five on our first game drive the afternoon we arrived, then completed the Big Five the next morning. We saw lions on a kill, lion cubs and even lions in a standoff with a group of hyenas protecting their kill.

Lion – Manyeleti Game Reserve

It was all new to Lachlan, but Heide and I were particularly excited to see leopards. We had only managed to catch the briefest glimpse of one on our previous African safari experiences.

Leopard – Manyeleti Game Reserve

We stayed in the Honeyguide Tented Camps in the heart of the reserve. There are actually two different camps, we stayed in the family-friendly Khoka Moya camp. This was a very authentic bush camp experience, but with great food and tents with indoor plumbing. We saw three of the Big Five (lion, elephant and buffalo) at the camp waterhole.

Mlilwane Wildlife Sanctuary

FAMILY SAFARI – MLILWANE WILDLIFE SANCTUARY

After the excitement of the Manyeleti Game Reserve, we headed to the tiny land-locked nation of Swaziland. At the Mlilwane Wildlife Sanctuary we had a more laid-back safari experience. This reserve lacks the lions and elephants of the other reserves we visited. This means that you can cycle or walk amongst the wildlife here. With only one day at Mlilwane we chose to drive around the park, seeing lots of different kinds of antelope, as well as zebra, hippos and crocodiles.

Tsessebe, Mlilwane Wildlife Sanctuary

Swaziland Sightseeing

FAMILY SAFARI – SIGHTSEEING IN SWAZILAND

For the last couple of days of our trip, we moved to more comfortable accommodation at the Mogi Boutique Hotel. We checked out some of the sights of Swaziland and did a bit of shopping before heading back to Johannesburg for our flight back home.

The highlight of our Swaziland sightseeing adventures was driving to the top of Sibebe Rock, a massive granite monolith. We also learned about Swaziland’s history at the memorial park for King Sobhuza II and at the Swaziland National Museum.

Sibebe Rock – Swaziland

So Many Photos …

ANIMAL PHOTOS FROM OUR FAMILY SAFARI

I took a lot of photos on our safari trip. Even after narrowing down to the best ones there were too many to include in the blog posts, so here’s a gallery including a bunch of pics that didn’t make it into the posts.