After 5 blissful nights at Machangulo Beach Lodge, we set off along more sandy tracks towards Catembe where we got the ferry across to Maputo. After a surprisingly easy crossing we made our way to SANParks Malelane Private Camp via Komatipoort, which was also a surprisingly painless crossing. We arrived in the dark, which generally makes things trickier, especially when there are limited plugpoints and you discover you need that weird blue plug. Saved by both neighbours, one providing a plug via their caravan and the other offering a cold beer! What more could you ask for!

Malelane Camp is really great, it is a bit of a free for all in terms of camping spots, so you need to set yourself up well. We returned to find new neighbours had parked pretty much on top of us. Luckily they were only there one night, so we were able to leave our bits spread out the next day so we could park the car alongside on our return. The ablutions are small and clean and the camp never felt like we were boxed in like sardines. The camp is fenced in, but we were told that the elephants had broken their way in and the night before we arrived, a large bull elephant was grazing right on the other side of the fence. Some visitors were nervous about this, but I was thrilled! As always – watch out for the monkeys.

We stayed at Malelane for 3 nights, it is so great to be in the park, but also away from the chaos, as it is such a small camp. Again, no photos, but I suppose I have a good excuse to go back! Here are a few photos of just some of the wildlife we saw.

The game viewing was great, I was desperate to see wild dog and Erik wanted to see a male lion. Our first morning in the park and we saw wild dog and ground hornbill; I was beside myself! We saw a lot of wildlife and I was amazed at the amount of elephant we saw, I am slightly ashamed to say it,but we so so many that by the end of our week in Kruger, I started getting slightly disinterested in them!

Camping at SANParks Malelane Private Camp is R250 per site and can be booked online or contact SANParks reservations. I found the online booking a breeze and you get a discount for booking this way. Getting a Wild Card was definitely worth it for us, so we didn’t have to pay the daily parks fees. You also get an awesome quarterly magazine in the mail, but beware, a serious case of itchy feet flares up every time!