How to keep the kids happy (and the parents)?
This week we have tried to capture some of our learnings in useful posts for other aspiring travelers. We will post three new ‘Resources’ post. The first one today is about how to keep the kids happy during traveling. The second one, tomorrow, will be about budget and the third one, Saturday, will be about all the handy and useful things we took with us. ======================================================= One of our big concerns we had for this trip was about the kids. How do we provide a situation for them in which they are content and experiencing emotional well being? When...
Read MoreExploring the Mpumalanga Lowveld
After our adventures in Swaziland we travelled back towards the Kruger National Park. We ‘promised’ our grandparents to find lions and leopards and Kruger is the best place to try this if you are on a self drive safari like us. The first few nights we stayed in Marloth park, one of the residential areas bordering Kruger, where you can rent a holiday home complete with animals like zebra and giraffe wandering around your house. Thereafter we drove for four days through the southern section of Kruger where we stayed in Lower Sabie, Skukuza and Berg & Dal. It was good to be back...
Read MoreShopping in Swaziland
From previous trips we had lovely memories of Swaziland; friendly people, beautiful nature and great souvenirs. In fact most of the souvenirs we have at home did come from Swaziland. So when we returned to South Africa we all took the opportunity to visit Swaziland once again. We booked five nights so that we could really relax and take in the sweet Swazi landscape, and of course have time to visit the craft centres and buy souvenirs. There are some pretty amazing women empowerment projects in Swaziland that have over the years trained and organised women to create the most beautiful and...
Read MoreThe parks of Zululand
Zululand covers a major part of Kwazulu-Natal and is the closest you get to real Africa in South Africa. The region is dominated by one tribal group, the Zulu, and it is here that you still see many traditional villages with roundel huts and where you need to take great care in driving, as even on the highways you will find cows, goats and people walking. But we did not come to Zululand for the culture or traditions, but we came here to visit some of the great parks that are home to Zululand. After we left Nambiti we first had a farm stay booked in Vryheid; an area where the Dutch farmers...
Read More5 star luxury in the Nambiti private game reserve
On a typical day at Elephant Rock lodge in Nambiti the alarm is set at 6am. The morning game drive leaves just before the sun rises and this is the best time of the day to see the big cats in action. Also the first and last hour of the day do bring the best light for photography, so you need to rise at dawn (luckily it is winter, in summer dawn starts before 5am). We let Emily sleep and Petra stays with her so it is just me and Lucas this time. The other guests gather as wel and we all climb in the vehicle, ready for a new day. The lions have been active last night so our ranger Stephanie...
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