Mark and I are at Daktari, which is just near Kruger Park. It’s a wildlife orphanage as well as a school for local, underprivileged children to learn about the environment and to help the orphaned wild animals. They've got a leopard, meercats, goats, donkeys, ostrich and lots of other animals. It's run by my Aunts brother in law, Ian, and his wife Michelle. You can find out information here www.dakaribushschool.org, but basically people can volunteer here to help teach the local children and also look after the animals (as I write someones hand feeding a squirrel who's too young to eat solids).
Before we got here we'd spent 6 days in Kruger Park and managed to see all of the big five (lion, elephant, rhino, buffalo and leopard) as well as almost everything else. We hadn't realised it but we were in Kruger over the local school holidays so when we went to book everything was completely booked out. So out tip to anyone planning on heading to Kruger is to book in advance on this website www.sanparks.org.
Due to our tiny little budget, Mark and I camped, and in South Africa, they take there camping seriously. Everyone seemed to have 6 man tents closer to size to an English flat, with fridges, and satellite dishes, with as well as full bbq kits (or braai's as they call them here). We had a small two man tent and a tiny little table and chair set. Clearly we looked pretty pitiful compared to these luxury tents, because pretty much every night we were adopted by some local who would see our very basic camp set up and lend us gear. One family even gave us steaks, sweet potato and damper to cook on a braai along with a cutlery set and plates and condiments (ours were no where near as nice). South African's are amongst the kindest, most generous people we've meet on our trip so far.
I'm going to cut this short, because breakfast is coming, including strawberry and white chocolate muffins and bacon and eggs (they also eat really well here!), but Anton, I promise to write a blog soon talking about probably the cutest little girl in the world, KT.
Mark's updated his photo blog, you can look at some here.
I'm glad to hear that you received good hospitality. We've got a page on our site about visiting Kruger on a budget which can be useful before you arrive!
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