HighwayRanger
Well-Known Member
“There is a plane leaving Bangalore direct flight to Cape Town on Friday at 06h00 your time. I will pick you up at Cape Town International upon your arrival. Don't forget your camera equipment and your book of photographic secrets. 
” …a casual remark from my South African friend, Tony from another forum a year ago started it all.
For my wife and me, a trip to Africa was always a dream. When my friend told me about Sanparks accommodations inside Kruger National Park, self-drive safaris, we got excited and started researching for the trip.
Planning started around September 2016. The plan was to reach the park on the 31st of August 2017 and leave the park on the 13th of September 2017.
First did a search for flights to Johannesburg from Chennai and found Saudi Arabian Airlines had cost effective flights – costing around 65k round trip for the 2 of us. We were surprised that it was so low.
Our friend had told us that around September was the best time to visit Kruger for game viewing as it was the fag end of winter, which means less water, more game near available waterbodies, no Mosquitos, less vegetation – easier viewing, no rains, not hot, etc.
With consultation with him, we zeroed in on four camps to spend 13 nights inside the park. We blocked the accommodation first as soon as it was open for reservation for this year. They get booked so fast, so better to be safe than sorry. The accommodation costs us around 92k. All the accommodations were with AC, fridge, kitchenette, microwave, toaster, kettle, and utensils.
The next step was to getting my wife’s passport renewed. That took some time as she is a government employee and she had to get proper NOC and other stuffs. That was done in March this year.
We bought the air tickets in May. We also paid half of the booking amount for the accommodation.
We then applied for South African VISA through VFS @ Bangalore. It was pretty straight forward. We got our passports with the VISA stamped by the end of June.
Then there was a change in the flight timings that we were not comfortable with and had to change our booking. So it was Bangalore-Jeddah-Johannesburg instead of Chennai-Jeddah-Johannesburg. And it cost us around 20k more.
Now, we had planned to do our own safaris in a self-drive rental car. The park is around 360 kms from Johannesburg. We rented a Toyota Corella Quest from Avis with unlimited kilometers and Zero liabilities with roadside assistance for the whole trip. Cost us around 33k. Pickup and drop at the Johannesburg airport. The car we got was neat with around 25k on the odo.
For mobile connectivity, we got one local Vodacom sim online from the site B4iTravel. I even got the mobile number 15 days before the travel and was to collect the sim from their outlet at the airport. Additionally, I also got the Tsim’ life time validity world sim. That also got delivered weeks before the travel.
Since everything was paid for before our travel, I didn’t take local currency. Instead I opted for ICICI World Travel card. I was watching the currency trend and loaded the card when the rates were 5 rupees to a Rand. Used the card for all the local purchases including petrol.
We did our own cooking. We bought groceries from Spar super market on the way to the park. Stocked up with long life milk, eggs, oil, bread, some veggies, etc. We took our own cooking utensils like the pressure cooker, frying pans, ladles, and a lot of Tupperware containers. We also took spices, rice, some noodles, soups, etc.
The cameras we took were, Nikon D90/18-105mm, Nikon D7100/70-300mm, Nikon D500/200-500+1:4TC, and a Panasonic camcorder.
D7100/70-300mm, f/5.3, 1/500, ISO120 @ 240mm
[to be cont.]
” …a casual remark from my South African friend, Tony from another forum a year ago started it all.For my wife and me, a trip to Africa was always a dream. When my friend told me about Sanparks accommodations inside Kruger National Park, self-drive safaris, we got excited and started researching for the trip.
Planning started around September 2016. The plan was to reach the park on the 31st of August 2017 and leave the park on the 13th of September 2017.
First did a search for flights to Johannesburg from Chennai and found Saudi Arabian Airlines had cost effective flights – costing around 65k round trip for the 2 of us. We were surprised that it was so low.
Our friend had told us that around September was the best time to visit Kruger for game viewing as it was the fag end of winter, which means less water, more game near available waterbodies, no Mosquitos, less vegetation – easier viewing, no rains, not hot, etc.
With consultation with him, we zeroed in on four camps to spend 13 nights inside the park. We blocked the accommodation first as soon as it was open for reservation for this year. They get booked so fast, so better to be safe than sorry. The accommodation costs us around 92k. All the accommodations were with AC, fridge, kitchenette, microwave, toaster, kettle, and utensils.
The next step was to getting my wife’s passport renewed. That took some time as she is a government employee and she had to get proper NOC and other stuffs. That was done in March this year.
We bought the air tickets in May. We also paid half of the booking amount for the accommodation.
We then applied for South African VISA through VFS @ Bangalore. It was pretty straight forward. We got our passports with the VISA stamped by the end of June.
Then there was a change in the flight timings that we were not comfortable with and had to change our booking. So it was Bangalore-Jeddah-Johannesburg instead of Chennai-Jeddah-Johannesburg. And it cost us around 20k more.
Now, we had planned to do our own safaris in a self-drive rental car. The park is around 360 kms from Johannesburg. We rented a Toyota Corella Quest from Avis with unlimited kilometers and Zero liabilities with roadside assistance for the whole trip. Cost us around 33k. Pickup and drop at the Johannesburg airport. The car we got was neat with around 25k on the odo.
For mobile connectivity, we got one local Vodacom sim online from the site B4iTravel. I even got the mobile number 15 days before the travel and was to collect the sim from their outlet at the airport. Additionally, I also got the Tsim’ life time validity world sim. That also got delivered weeks before the travel.
Since everything was paid for before our travel, I didn’t take local currency. Instead I opted for ICICI World Travel card. I was watching the currency trend and loaded the card when the rates were 5 rupees to a Rand. Used the card for all the local purchases including petrol.
We did our own cooking. We bought groceries from Spar super market on the way to the park. Stocked up with long life milk, eggs, oil, bread, some veggies, etc. We took our own cooking utensils like the pressure cooker, frying pans, ladles, and a lot of Tupperware containers. We also took spices, rice, some noodles, soups, etc.
The cameras we took were, Nikon D90/18-105mm, Nikon D7100/70-300mm, Nikon D500/200-500+1:4TC, and a Panasonic camcorder.
[to be cont.]
