Liselle’s client, Giovanni Tepedino, enjoyed a family friendly safari in the Kruger. Giovanni and his family spent time at Simbavati River Lodge in the Timbavati Game Reserve, Imbali Safari Lodge in the Kruger National Park and Nottens Bush Camp in the Sabi Sand.
Here is the client feedback :
Ciao Liselle,
That’s a long leave you took, I hope it was for a long holiday!
In short everything went spot on, there is nothing I would have changed or done differently. The 3 lodges were very different in style and it made perfect sense to visit them in the order you suggested. Imbali is more of an ‘old style’ type of place, Simbavati had the feeling of wanting to be a ‘design cool’ place, Nottens… so special with the candles and oil lamps it definitively stole our hearts! All the rangers and guides in the different lodges were great but ranger Tom at Nottens is a truly special person.
My kids were up every morning at 5:30 with no complaints at all. We actually asked them half way through if they wanted to take a break and sleep a bit longer one morning but no, they did not want to miss a single drive. 9 days solid! We also went on two bush walks at Nottens. We never had other families with kids of similar age staying in the same place as us, so the only thing my boys missed was the chance to play with other kids.
Wildlife… we saw a lot of animals. Highlights: on the first drive a herd of elephant ‘visited’ us while we were having a drink break next to a waterhole, we saw a mum & baby rhino, two brother cheetas exploring their territory, a hyena ’nursery’ den with cubs, 8 or 9 leopards and about the same number of rhinos over the course of the 9 days , a heard of elephant bathing in a lake, and… almost on the last day… a pack of wild dogs killing (to be exact: ripping it to peaces while still alive…) a baby warthog in front of us! The kill was brutal (it took in all about 30 seconds and both adults and kids went pale green) but helped to put the whole pray/predator thing into perspective for our kids!!!
For the transfer from Simbavati to Nottens we took ‘a shortcut’ because of roadworks and we went trough some of the villages outside the normal ‘touristic’ route. This gave all of us the chance to see the living conditions of many of the less affluent people, one of the many different sides of South Africa that we would otherwise have missed.
Pictures… Spoiled for choice, I took about a thousand of them, and a few will end up on our walls at home soon. Here are three of my favourites.
It was a huuuuge amount of money so it is unlikely that we will be able to repeat it any time soon… but when did you say the next flight is?
Thanks for everything,
