Kruger Park Couples Retreat

Elder and Sister Nichols arranged a mission couples retreat for 27 April 2012 in Kruger Park. Only eight couples accepted the invitation, four of them from Botswana - the Kimballs, Mosses, Taylors, and Rands.

Impala

Wildebeest

We caravanned in two cars from Gaborone to Kruger Park on Thursday, 26 April. We started at five o'clcok in the morning and eleven and half hours later arrived at our guest lodge in Komatipoort, South Africa. All the couples arrived at the guest lodge within fifteen minutes of each other even though we came from widely different locations.

Leopard

Leopard

That evening the Nichols had arranged a braai (barbecue) on the guest lodge patio. They served potato salad, pasta salad, bean salad, rolls, lamb, chicken kebabs, and chocolate cake. We used the guest lodge grills to cook the meat. It was great to get better aquainted with the other couples over dinner and hear about their varied missionary experiences. The areas in the mission vary so greatly that couples have experiences are very different but at the same time quite similar.

Kudu

Giraffe

We got up very early Friday morning so that we could be in line to get into the park at five o'clock. It was a holiday weekend so we were a bit concerned about getting into the park before they cut off entrance. While we waited for the park to open at six o'clock we had a tailgater breakfast. Our car was the third car in line and the other missionary cars were right after us. By the time the park opened the line of cars was quite long. We were very glad we were early so that we could get into the park at sunrise as this is one of the best times of the day to see animals.

Lion

Lion

Once inside the park each car of couples went their own way. We stopped first thing and bought a map with animal identification pictures in it. We would have been quite lost without the map for directions and would not have known what animals we were looking at especially the ones we ended up calling DLAs (deer-like animals).

Fighting Hippopotanus

Sunning Hippopotamus

We feel we had great luck seeing animals in the park. It is really quite the luck of the draw as to what you see. You may see something spectacular and two minutes later the animals have passed on and the next car would miss it entirely. We saw a lot of animals and most of them at a very close range. Some like the leopard were very close to the car. The leopard walked around the front and side of the car and we took its picture from less than two meters away. Most of the time we were driving roads without other cars in sight. We made a couple of loops and only covered the same sections of roads for less than twenty kilometers.

Waterbucks

African Elephant

We were surprised at how quickly the terrain and vegetation changes in the park. One side of the road can look very different from the other and in a few minutes of driving everything can look quite changed. The variety of the scenery was an added bonus to all of the animals.

Chacma Baboon

Warthog

We were lucky to see four out of the "Big Five" African animals - African elephant, leopard, rhinocerus, and lion. We missed seeing buffalo even though all of the other missionaries saw buffalo but they did not see any of the cats. We saw one leopard, one lion, two cheetahs very fleetingly, two Chacma baboons, two Vervet monkeys, five crocodile, ten warthogs, twelve white rhinoceros, twelve kudus, twelve to fifteen wildebeests, twenty-five to thirty zebra, about fifty giraffes, forty to fifty waterbucks, seveny-five to one hundred hippopotamus, and hundreds of impalas.

DLA (Deer-Like Animals)

White Rhinoceros and Baby

We left the park when it closed at six o'clock as did all the other missionaries. There is a big fine for leaving the park after six o'clock so we didn't want to be late. All the missionaries and a Peace Corpe worker who is a member of the church went out to dinner at at Portuguese restaurant in Komatipoort right after leaving the park. Saturday we spent the day driving back to Botswana.

Alders, Diana, Kimballs, Nichols, Hymases, Taylors, Mihus, Rands, and Mosses