The majority of our safari was focused on Botswana and Namibia, but we did pick up and drop off our truck in Johannesburg, so we stayed in South Africa for a few nights at the beginning and end of the trip

Safari Night 1: Waterberg Wildnerness Reserve, between Mookgopong and Polokwane

Getting There
We had just picked up our truck and were still adjusting to driving a large 4×4 truck on the left side of the road, so we were happy that this reserve was only a few hours away.

It was a little-nerve-wracking getting to the site though, because they were doing road construction and we had to take this pretty wild side path. Luckily one of the managers showed us the way or we might never have found it!

Campsite
This was a very nice site. Nice trees isolating us from the other sites (although we were the only ones there this night). A nice stone table and fire pit with provided firewood that made an excellent fire.

The camp managers were also super nice and helpful. We had forgotten to buy matches at the store, so they gave us a full box plus some firelighters (excellent stuff that we are curious why it isn’t more popular in the USA). Also, we realized here that Bushlore forgot to fill our 40L water tank in the truck, and they were kind enough to give us a hose to hook up to the water outlet and fill it (and to help us tighten the connection).

Ablutions
Since it was our first night on the road, we didn’t have any expectations for how rustic things would be. We were pleasantly surprised at how fancy this one was, with a nice building with fancy fixtures and good hot water.

Activities
They have different 4×4 driving trails throughout the reserve, and one of the managers was nice enough to recommend a route for us. This gave us a very pretty view over the property for sunset.

Safari Night 23: Red Sands Desert Lodge, near Kuruman

Getting There
If you’ll recall, night 22 was in Keetmanshoop, Namibia. This is quite a long distance away from Kuruman, so this was our longest driving day of the trip. By this point Eric had gotten a little more comfortable with the manual transmission, so he was able to do a few hours of highway driving.

We did also have a border crossing, but luckily again we seemed to be the only ones crossing at the time. Getting into South Africa was especially interesting. All the customs agent asked was about how big the states in the US were. The police officer ran our fingerprints, and told us that we were rejected… but we could clearly see the “No Match” on the machine and his partner was grinning and messing with his cell phone in the background – and the officer eventually admitted he was joking. The person that was supposed to inspect the car inside just wrote down our license plate and asked if she could ride to Johannesburg with us. Everyone there just seemed to be looking for some sort of entertainment!

Campsite
Not as nice as it should have been… When we arrived at Red Sands, they had no record of the booking that Bushlore had made for us there. We called Bushlore and they said we should just pay for it (again) and sort it out back in Joburg. But, there were no actual sites available. There was no other campground nearby, so we weren’t sure what to do. But then a manager stepped in and identified an area with a table that we could us as a site for the night. The site itself didn’t have much beyond the table, but it certainly beat sleeping on the side of the road.

Ablutions
We were allowed to use the big ablutions block near the actual campsites. Since the camp was full this meant that the ablutions was somewhat crowded. We didn’t take showers, but heard others complaining of limited hot water.

Amenities
They had a nice reception area with free wifi… but only a 50 MB data limit. We burned through this in about 30 minutes :(. There was a nice restaurant as well where the we doing  braai (bbq) buffet, but we had enough food left that we decided to cook anyway. We did visit the bar to relax after the stress of driving and site mixups. Here we had the Castle Milk Stout for the first time, which was a nice change of pace from all the standard lagers we had been drinking.

Safari Night 24: Magalies Sleepy River, Magaliesburg

Getting There
For our last night we decided to go off the beaten path of what others do for their safaris. Instead of making the long drive from Kuruman back to return the truck, we decided to stay in this area just an hour outside of town. So we just looked up the campground on the Internet and found our way to it.

When we arrived, they seemed somewhat surprised to see us. It seems like they are mostly a summer operation and don’t really actually open in the winter. But, they were happy to take our money for the site.

Campsite
There was only one other person in the entire camprgound (a long-term caravaner), so we definitely had our pick of sites. The setting is very pretty, with lots of nice trees and hills surrounding.

Ablutions
A nice big building with good hot water

Amenities
Looked like there would have been a lot more going on in the summer – pool, hiking, etc. They did have a beer fridge that we purchased a couple of beers from since our box of wine had run out the previous night.

Activities
This was right next door to the Cradle of Humankind area, which was another reason we chose to stop here.

Final Thoughts
It’s hard to really have much of an opinion on our South African safari stops since we didn’t spend much time at any of them. But one common theme was definitely the friendliness and helpfulness of all the employees that we interacted with!