Mpumalanga, South Africa

South Africa

Formerly known as the Eastern Transvaal, Mpumalanga is one of South Africa’s top tourist destinations. People are drawn by the magnificent scenery, the fauna and flora and by the saga of the 1870s gold rush era and a wealth of fascinating tribal legends.

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Aptly known as "Paradise Country", few regions in the world can match the extraordinary beauty of the Lowveld and escarpment. Mountains, panoramic passes, valleys, rivers, waterfalls and forests characterise the landscape. This is also Big Game Country; the setting for dozens of sanctuaries teeming with wildlife and birds.

Among them, the Kruger National Park is world renowned, as are several of the luxurious private reserves on its western boundary. The entire area offers exceptional opportunities for bird-watching, hiking, horse-riding and fishing. Streams once panned for gold have become the haunts of eager anglers and lazy trout.

Just beyond Sabie, the Mac Mac Falls are worth stopping for; and you can treat yourself to a swim in the crystal-clear pools. A small detour leads to Pilgrim's Rest; a fascinating historic town, well worth exploring before continuing to Blyderivierspoort Nature Reserve. In the reserve, you can feast your eyes on the Blyde River Canyon and the rich bird life. At the southern tip of the reserve, the view from God's Window stretches to eternity across the Lowveld. From there, it's a short and easy drive to some of the finest private game reserves in the country and Orpen Gate to the Kruger National Park

Kruger National Park
The Kruger National Park lying in the heart of the Lowveld is a wildlife sanctuary like no other, its atmosphere so unique that it allows those who enter its vastness to immerse themselves in the unpredictability and endless wilderness that is the true quality of Africa.

The largest game reserve in South Africa, the Kruger National Park is larger than Israel. Nearly 2 million hectares of land that stretch for 352 kilometres (20 000 square kilometres) from north to south along the Mozambique border, is given over to an almost indescribable wildlife experience. Certainly it ranks with the best in Africa and is a flagship of the country’s national parks - rated as the ultimate safari experience.

The Kruger National Park lies across the provinces of Mpumalanga and Limpopo in the north of the country, just south of Zimbabwe and west of Mozambique. It now forms part of the Great Limpopo Transfrontier Park – a peace park that links Kruger with game parks in Zimbabwe and Mozambique, and fences are already coming down to allow game to freely roam in much the way it would have in the time before man’s intervention. When complete, the Greater Limpopo Transfrontier Park will extend across 35 000 square kilometres, 58% of it South African, 24% Mozambican and 18% Zimbabwean territory.

This is the land of baobabs, fever trees, knob thorns, marula and mopane trees underneath which lurk the Big Five, the Little Five (buffalo weaver, elephant shrew, leopard tortoise, ant lion and rhino beetle), the birding Big Six (ground hornbill, kori bustard, lappet-faced vulture, martial eagle, pel’s fishing owl and saddle-bill stork) and more species of mammals than any other African Game Reserve.

The Kruger is a self-drive destination, although there are guided tour operators, with an excellent infrastructure that includes picnic sites, rest camps, waterholes and hides. It’s a remarkable reserve offering an incredible experience of Africa at its most wild.

Up until fairly recently the only accommodation in the Kruger was the government run rest camps. However, large tracts of untouched land have been leased, in a fairly unusual commercial move by the park, to private operators who have established lodges run in a similar way to the luxurious private reserves on the western boundary of Kruger National Park, like Sabi Sands and Timbavati. These private lodges might still be bound by most of the rules of the park, but they offer incredible luxury, superbly guided game drives, and the freedom to move into the greater park area if desired, although there is more than enough to occupy you when staying here. These private game lodges offer a more intimate and exclusive experience of the vast Kruger.