Kruger Through a Mom's Eyes | The Kitchings

July 2024. Our winter trip, first time staying in the south so long. Berg-en-Dal camp, rhinos everywhere, two old dagga boy buffalo anchoring a waterhole, the youngest hyena pups we’d ever seen, shameless vervet monkeys, and an elephant that stopped at the fence for Sheldon late one afternoon.

March 2024. Olifants and Satara. The trip that changed how we do Kruger — hyena pups at a dam, a lone lioness who felt the weight of something we couldn’t name, painted wolves for over an hour, the bat house at dusk, and a naaldekoker on a bridge that became the moment of the whole trip.

September 2023. Phalaborwa gate, burnt veld still smouldering, the kids’ first time at Mopani, sparse sightings, and one extraordinary fish eagle and crocodile sequence at the Letaba River. The quiet trips are the ones that stay with you.

March 2023. My 30th birthday, just Sheldon and me, northern Kruger for the first time. A cheetah before breakfast, hippos at the Mopani fence, the elephant incident we don’t fully discuss, lion cubs waiting in the dark, and a trip cut short by real life.

November 2022. Our first proper Kruger camping trip — trailer, tent extension, Casper the white lion, a leopard, a rhino, mating lions blocking the road, and a four-year-old convinced the ostriches had escaped. The trip that started everything.