$2,034 pp (USD)
This tour is offered in ZAR.
Show rate in ZAR
Arrival
Arrival
Day 1
Johannesburg to Safari Moon Luxury Bush Lodge (Hoedspruit) and Sunset Safari on Pridelands
Johannesburg to Safari Moon Luxury Bush Lodge (Hoedspruit) and Sunset Safari on Pridelands
The journey to Safari Moon Bush Lodge begins at OR Tambo International Airport. Your dedicated transfer vehicle heads northeast into the Limpopo lowveld. The drive takes five to six hours. You arrive at Safari Moon within Hoedspruit Wildlife Estate ready for the bush.
Safari Moon is not a hotel with a game drive on the menu. It is a working bush lodge in a private estate in the heart of the Hoedspruit wildlife corridor. Rooms are en-suite with indoor and outdoor showers. The lodge has a pool, a bar, and a kitchen that takes the food seriously.
Late afternoon, your guide takes you out on Pridelands for the sunset drive. Pridelands is Big Five territory within the Greater Kruger ecosystem. As the light drops, you pause for sundowners in the field. Then the drive continues after dark with spotlights. Your guide works the beam for leopard and civet as the bush shifts into its night rhythm. A three-course dinner, prepared by the lodge chef, closes your first evening in the bush.
- Main Destination:
- Balule Private Nature Reserve (Greater Kruger)
- Accommodation:
- Safari Moon Luxury Bush Lodge
Wildlife in Balule NR
- Meals & Drinks:
Day 2
Full-Day Open Vehicle Safari in Central Kruger National Park
Full-Day Open Vehicle Safari in Central Kruger National Park
Central Kruger is the engine room of the park. Your guide enters through Orpen Gate before the crowds arrive and works the reserve roads with a plan, not a route sheet.
The open-vehicle format matters. No windows, no glass. You are in the environment, not looking at it from behind air conditioning. Your guide reads animal behaviour, reads the bush, and positions the vehicle for the sighting. If something is worth staying for, you stay.
We do not run large groups or operate in convoy. Your guide works your vehicle on your sightings, not a queue of seven jeeps chasing the same lion.
Breakfast is taken at a picnic site inside the park. Lunch follows at a rest camp. The afternoon session runs into the changing light, when predator activity picks up and the gates begin to empty.
You return to Safari Moon in the late afternoon. After a full day in the open vehicle, the lodge is the right kind of quiet. The pool. The bar. A three-course dinner prepared by the lodge chef closes the day.
- Main Destination:
- Central Kruger National Park
- Accommodation:
- Safari Moon Luxury Bush Lodge
Wildlife in Kruger NP
- Meals & Drinks:
Day 3
Panoramic Tour of the Blyde River Canyon and Boat Cruise of the Blyde Dam
Panoramic Tour of the Blyde River Canyon and Boat Cruise of the Blyde Dam
The Blyde River Canyon is one of the largest green canyons in the world. Most operators driving guests up from Johannesburg stop at one roadside viewpoint and call it a Panorama Tour. This is not that.
The morning starts on the water. A 90-minute boat cruise on the Blyde Dam takes you to the base of Kadishi Tufa Waterfall and into the reach of the Three Rondawels from below. This is a perspective most visitors to the canyon never get. The boat moves at the pace of the landscape.
Back on land, the Panorama Route runs south. The Three Rondawels viewpoint puts the full canyon span in front of you. Bourke's Luck Potholes sits below in the gorge where the Treur and Blyde Rivers meet, shaped by thousands of years of water working through the rock. Lunch is at a local restaurant in the area.
You return to Safari Moon Bush Lodge in the late afternoon. The chef has dinner waiting. After a day split between the canyon and the river, the bush closes the evening on its own terms.
- Main Destination:
- Blyde River Canyon Nature Reserve (Panorama Route)
- Accommodation:
- Safari Moon Luxury Bush Lodge
- Meals & Drinks:
Day 4
Second Full-Day Open Vehicle Safari in Central Kruger National Park
Second Full-Day Open Vehicle Safari in Central Kruger National Park
No two days in Kruger run the same. Your guide knows this better than anyone.
Day 4 takes you back through Orpen Gate with a different plan. The same park, a different road. Yesterday built context. Today your guide works with it, pushing into areas the first day mapped out and staying longer where the sightings earn it.
The open vehicle. The same rules. Breakfast in the park. Lunch at a rest camp. The afternoon reads differently when you know the terrain. Predator patterns, seasonal movement, the sightings your guide has been building since Day 2.
You return to Safari Moon for dinner. Two days in Kruger tells a different story than one.
- Main Destination:
- Central Kruger National Park
- Accommodation:
- Safari Moon Luxury Bush Lodge
- Meals & Drinks:
Day 5
Sunrise Safari on Pridelands and Transfer to Johannesburg
Sunrise Safari on Pridelands and Transfer to Johannesburg
Before you check out, there is an optional sunrise game drive on Pridelands at R 1 390 per person. It starts before the sun comes up. The reserve at dawn runs differently from the one you drove at sunset. Predators are still moving. The light is low and flat, and your guide knows both.
If you choose to go out, tea and coffee are served in the field. If something is worth stopping for, you stop. This is not a scheduled hour drive. You take the time the bush earns.
Whether you join the sunrise drive or take the morning at the lodge, breakfast is served before departure. Your dedicated shuttle vehicle heads back to OR Tambo International Airport in Johannesburg.
Five days. Two game reserves. Two full days in Kruger National Park. The Blyde River Canyon. A private bush lodge inside Hoedspruit Wildlife Estate. This is what a well-structured safari looks like.
- Main Destination:
- Balule Private Nature Reserve (Greater Kruger)
- Accommodation:
- No accommodation (End of tour)
- Meals & Drinks:
