Kruger National Park - The BOSS of all National parks.

WRITTEN BY: SHARANYA RAMESH

When one thinks of South Africa, one of the first things that pops into their mind is the Kruger national park. In 1895, Jakob Louis van Wyk introduced in the area of the old South African Republic, a motion to create the game reserve which would become the Kruger National Park. Lying in the heart of the Lowveld is a wildlife sanctuary like no other, its atmosphere so unique that it allows those who enter its vastness to immerse themselves in the unpredictability and endless wilderness that is the true quality of Africa. To give you an idea of how large this vast national park is, think of it like this – The Kruger National park is larger than Israel. That’s how large this national park is.

The Kruger National Park lies across the provinces of Mpumalanga and Limpopo in the north of South Africa, just south of Zimbabwe and west of Mozambique. Very broadly speaking, the Kruger National Park is flat with a few gentle hills, and people tend to classify the area of the Kruger as unvaried and dry, which is rather like saying South Africa is sunny - it conceals an amazingly rich diversity. The Kruger National Park is divided into no fewer than six ecosystems - baobab sandveld, Lebombo knobthorn-marula bushveld, mixed acacia thicket, woodland on granite, and riverine forest. The entire park can be divided into 4 regions, northern, eastern, western and southern.

North of the Orange River is a semi-arid region covering 7 000 square kilometres that sees very little rain. Vegetation here changes very little from the unvarying shrub mopane, which thrives in hot, low-lying valleys. This is the northern region. The southern region encompasses of the Crocodile River in the south and the Sabie River in the north. The southern region is also host to the jagged ridge of the Lebombo Mountains along the border with Mozambique, and the highest point in the park, Khandzalive, in the southwestern corner - almost in counterpoint to Pretoriuskop that lies in the west of the southern region of the Kruger National Park.

This is the land of baobabs, fever trees, knob thorns, marula and mopane trees underneath which lurk the Big Five, the Little Five (buffalo weaver, elephant shrew, leopard tortoise, ant lion and rhino beetle), the birding Big Six (ground hornbill, kori bustard, lappet-faced vulture, pel’s fishing owl and saddle-bill stork) and more species of mammals than any other African Game Reserve and any other place in the world.

The Kruger National park is undeniably one of the most talked about national parks in the world and even through just pictures, one can see how absolutely breath taking it is. A visit to the Kruger National Park, is something this student is hoping will happen very soon!