Kruger
Calling
It’sbeennearly 30 yearssInceCHRISDAVIESlIvedIn Kruger
natIonalParK.on aneIght-dayroadtrIP, hereturnswIth
hIs famIly to theIr chIldhoodPlaygroundgetaway.co.za 51ometimes I come to love a place
so much that when I leave it’s
inconceivable that I’ll never be back. But
then time passes and life goes on, and the
return journey gets indefinitely delayed.
After years of this, I finally realised that
actual trips down memory lane don’t just
happen. And so, after much planning, and
nearly three decades, I finally returned to
Kruger National Park with my family.
It was a fine winter’s morning as we left
Joburg, driving into the sunrise towards
the Crocodile River. My brother and his
Italian girlfriend had flown in from Perugia,
my aunt from the UK and the rest of us
from Cape Town. It’s near impossible to
get everyone together these days, and
my mom was all smiles as I glanced round
to the back seat. In the late 80s we’d all
lived in the Kruger for a glorious six
months; my late father was a freshwater
zoologist studying the rivers. Though my
sister and I had visited separately since,
for my brother, aunt and mother it was
their first time back.
Our initial stop was a wonderful
treehouse in the Crocodile River Nature
Reserve, a stone’s throw from Kruger, and
we were soon settled in the cosy braai
area, tucked between high boulders withsuperb Lowveld views. As the moon arced
across the sky, we sat and reminisced late
into the night. Soon we’d be driving north
through the park itself, to a special date
on the Luvuvhu River. We’d once camped
wild on the Luvuvhu for three wonderful
weeks and I was eager to take my mom
back to that memorable spot.
Those six months in Kruger were an
incredible privilege, especially for me –
I was 10 at the time. We’d jump into an
open bakkie, a park ranger behind the
wheel, and stand up in the back once we’d
left the main public roads. I doubt if, even
then, it was strictly allowed, but we’d felt
like kings of the bushveld with the wind
in our hair. This time I made do with the
window rolled down as we entered the
park early the next morning.
You can always tell a new arrival in
Kruger – they’re the ones who pull over for
every impala they see. That was us, as we
inched like first-timers towards Skukuza,
soaking in the moment and stopping
for every warthog. As we finally drifted
into camp the sun was silhouetting the
marabou stork-studded trees. They stood
sentinel along the road like the outline of
a memory and it seemed they’d never left
throughout the intervening years.s
Chris Davies