Exploring the Kruger National Park on foot is an unforgettable experience
Marius Renke, a former Kruger National Park (KNP) section ranger now working at Kruger Untamed’s seasonal Satara Plains Camp, has spent decades walking around in the park’s wild spaces, but this is a privilege afforded to relatively few visitors and, when such an opportunity arises, having someone like Renke at the front of the line gives great comfort.
After alighting from the game vehicle a few kilometres from the camp, the walk starts alongside a small river fed by a spring, its pools deep and flow strong even after long periods of no rain. A pod of hippos moves past as we stand on the bank and watch. Further on, there are signs of their nighttime activities – flattened grass where they have rested and scattered faeces where territories have been marked.
The birdlife is beguiling. Within a few hundred metres, sightings include a green-backed heron, a Goliath heron, a giant kingfisher, an open-billed stork and a Verreaux’s eagle-owl. A blue wildebeest, lying down some distance away, snorts as it notices that we have strayed into the edge of its area of concern, but doesn’t move just yet.
Treasure retrieved
Lying on the ground is the snapped-off tip of an elephant’s tusk. Renke picks it up and gives it to his ranger colleague, CJ, who puts it in a bag he is carrying. The location of the discovery of the handful of cracked, worn ivory will be recorded and the fragment will join all other ivory found in the KNP in a vault in Skukuza. The incident feels like a metaphor for the sanctity of the place; the value of it being protected and precious.
Later on, having just crossed the river at a narrow point, we look back and see a small herd of elephants on the bank we have just vacated – both parties are happier with this outcome. Renke smiles. He has been pointing out their tracks all morning and knew that we were some way behind them, but he knows better than most that caution and knowledge are only part of the equation and that wild animals are capable of surprising anyone, so this situation – with the elephants feeding peacefully, and us, aware of our presence in their home and grateful to be temporarily allowed to be there – is a best-case scenario.
A walk in the wild is so much more immersive than a game drive, though there are fewer sundowners on offer. Visitors get a chance to try to identify spoor before Renke confirms it – elephant, giraffe, baboon, lion, leopard and even ostrich (it’s an odd one; out of context, it takes you a while to visualise what could have formed that pattern).
As the vehicle arrives to fetch us, a secretary bird, disturbed by our presence, stalks off in some long grass just off the road, waggling its rear like a ’50s Hollywood starlet.
Text and photography | Bruce Dennill
For more information or to book a stay, go to krugeruntamed.com.
