Sabie and Krugar National Park – Part one – Sabie

Inscribed by Hariharan

If I could just start with one Word .. It would be WOW !! I really doubt if there was a better way to culminate my stint in South Africa … Krugar and Sabie were places that I had heard about from the beginning of my South Africa visit and I wanted to go see them, but somehow it just never happened. Finally it came in the best of times … This would leave a lasting memory of South Africa in my mind for a long time to come …

Day 1 – Sabie

I had the company of my friend Arindam in this visit … Wasn’t as bad as I had expected it to be !! ;-D … So we started our Sabie and Krugar National Park weekend tour on a Friday early morning. We had planned to see Sabie and Hazyview first and then reach our Guest House in Krugar by Friday evening. As we approached Sabie weather started to chill up a bit and the view started to get prettier with every passing kilometre. At one point the fog started to get so thick that I had a visibility of only a couple of meter after my car’s bonnet. So I was relying on the road’s divider lines to drive ahead … a fog that thick was a first time for me … a very unique experience !!

We viewed Bridal Veil Falls and Lone Creek Falls for starters. Thanks to our wonderful planning, we had forgotten to withdraw money so by the time we were at Lone Creek Falls we were down to our last R5. We pleaded our way into Lone Creek Falls as the entry fees there was R10!! The person there was kind enough to allow us in for half the charge. We had to then make our way to Sabie town to get to an ATM to get money for the rest of our journey. Our next destination was the Mac Mac falls. It was a probably the highest of all the falls we saw (about 65 meters I remember reading). Looked majestic from the top where we saw it – the water then flowing into a canyon … It was a beautiful sight indeed! The last falls that we saw was Lisbon falls it was also had a very scenic panorama. Photos R to Lin the order described above.

We then went to the Pinnacle at Blyde River Canyon. This was close to the God’s window and the view that I saw was something that I had never seen before. I could never imagine that there could be a place like this. Absolutely spell bound. No wonder, its called the God’s window. There was this huge structure protruding out from the gorge between two cliffs. Just see the image to see the awesome view. When we did reach the God’s window, the fog again surrounded the area (just like before) and we couldn’t see the view at the actual God’s window. Well … Guess, God decided to close the windows for me that day. :) .. But its ok … his creations that I saw that day was satisfying enough for me.

Last destination for the day was Bourkes Luck Potholes at Blyde River Canyon (incidentally Blyde River Canyon is one of the largest Canyons on earth). This Canyon had some really huge potholes possibly formed due to water repeatedly circling specific areas for thousands of years. Its again a sight to be seen to be believed.

After that unique experience we drove past the sleepy town of Pilgrims Rest and beautiful area of Hazyview to our Guesthouse - Marloth Bush Retreat at the Southern end of Krugar National Park.

Some more photos ... surprisingly taken from my Digital Camera ... :) .. Wait for Day 2 ... soon ...