Kruger National Park, South Africa 2014 - 2a Our trip.

We stopped at 4 Rest Camps in the southern park of the Park - Satara, Lower Sabie, Skukuza and Berg-en-Dal. We all liked the Satara campsite the best as we were able to get a site next to the fence which overlooks an open area of land.

We had some amazing sightings in the 7 days that we spent in the park. As we were there before the school holidays started the campsites had plenty of spaces and we didn't have any mass vehicle groupings at animal sightings.

The majority of the photos on the Kruger pages were taken by Mark and Jason with my Canon 550D mostly with a 25-200 zoom lens. The ones on the sunset drive and at the Lake Panic bird hide were taken with my 100 - 400 zoom lens. It was the first time that they'd used an SLR camera using the AV mode rather than just on auto and they made big improvements in their technique over the week.

This was the boys first time in Kruger and they were keen to see some predators - previously they've seen leopard in Imfolozi but no other predators. We were incredibly lucky to see lion, cheetah, hyena and wild dogs as well a 3 leopards in the week that we were there. They were both very good at spotting distant animals:

Jason spotted 2 cheetah - they’re right in the middle of this picture.....

Later that morning Mark spotted a male lion.

Using the 200 zoom lens and then cropping the images:

As soon as we arrived at a campsite the boys helped to set up camp, unhitching the van, putting up the awning and erecting their small tent.

They often made their own breakfast on the gas stove but also started to learn how to get an open fire right for cooking.

Mark took a lot of photos of lizards, trying out different camera settings.

He also enjoyed taking sunset and sunrise photos - this is sunset at Skukuza.

1. Fishing.

2a. Kruger . Our Trip.

2b. Kruger. Predators.

2c. Kruger. Dams and Hides.

2d Kruger. Other animals and birds.

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Most days the temperature was in the mid 30s so the swimming pools at the Rest Camps were a good place to cool down.