Day 8 - Saturday 21st July 2018 - Day Off - Kruger

After a week of spending time in the community at Mafambisa with the care workers, children and visiting care givers in their homes and hearing their stories, Saturday gave us the opportunity for some down time which we spent in Kruger National Park.

The day started earlier than usual with a 4:30 start to make our way to the gates of Kruger so that we would be first in the queue and avoid passport hold ups.

We were fortunate to find three of the ‘big five’ (the animals most dangerous to hunt) before 8.30am alone. The first discovery was a group of zebras, in which we were all awed by the sight of seeing them in their natural habitat. The sight of the elephants was truly amazing as we saw them within a herd (a sight we were told was rare) and also in very close proximity where we were at risk of being stampeded upon. Our final sighting of the ‘big five’ was a rhino, we saw both black and white ones and despite being a distance away the size of them was still overwhelming. Sadly we did not get to witness a lion but that was not to put a dampener on the day. 

At midday we decided to take a swim in Skukusa-a pool in the middle of Kruger Park. Despite it being absolutely freezing within the pool we decided to jump in as we really couldn’t turn down the opportunity.

Upon finishing our chilly swim, we continued our journey around the national park but we were unlucky in finding any more animals but it was just as amazing to observe the landscape.

We arrived back to the Hub in darkness as we had left, treating ourselves to a meal of lasagne that we shared with our friends (the long term volunteers of Hands) and played several new games around the table.

By AJ and Meg