The Kruger National Park, offers visitors a true African experience. This area, which is often referred to as the "greater Kruger Park area," includes the many private game reserves bordering the Kruger Park forming a huge area where animals are free to roam and migrate.
Established in 1889 to protect the wildlife found in the Lowveld area in South Africa, the Kruger National Park park is nearly 2 million hectares in size. The park boasts a remarkable number of species: 507 birds, 147 mammals, 49 fish, 34 amphibians and 114 reptiles. There are also a number of archaeological sites worth visiting in the Kruger Park - bushman rock paintings and restored iron-age villages add to the pleasure of visiting this area.
The private game reserves around the Kruger Park offer excellent accommodation and game viewing in there own safari vehicles and guides taking visitors on game drives and bush walks.
The Kruger Park Safaris offer visitors to South Africa excellent safari packages, especially to those who have only a few days to go on safari, where no time is wasted getting into the action.
This world-renowned Kruger Park offers a wildlife experience that ranks with the best in Africa.
You are guaranteed to see animals in this area.
The greater Kruger Park area is a huge area where animals are free to migrate and move around. This area is unrivalled in the diversity of its life forms and a world leader in advanced environmental management techniques and policies. The visitor will be able to see animals native to Africa in their natural environment. As this is such a large area covering different eco-zones, one will see animals more adapted to that eco-zone in that particular area.
Home to the famous big 5. Almost all the game reserves in this area carry - Lion, Leopard, Elephant, Rhino and Buffalo.
History of Balule Game Reserve
The name "BALULE" is the Tsonga (language of the Shangaan people ) word for "Buffalo". There are regular sightings of these bovine beasts on our Sunset Drive.
Various landowners in the Balule Section of greater Kruger Park area realised the need to drop fences between their properties and create a large reserve where the animals could roam free over this larger area.
Olifants Game Reserve and Klaserie Game Reserve are two reserves to the east of Balule. The successful removal of fences between the Kruger Park and Klaserie Game Reserve was motivation to extend the Kruger and incorporate the Olifants and Balule Game Reserves. It was recognized that the fence on the tar road between Phalaborwa and Hoedspruit was the obvious place to have the western edge of Kruger Park. Once all the fences were correctly equipped with high voltage capacities and an extra 40 000 hectares were added to Kruger Park in this way.
Greater Kruger National Park travel info
Ecosystems within the Kruger Park are highly varied. Six rivers feed the park - an area that encompasses an astonishing 16 vegetation zones including 1980 plant species and 300 tree species
Seasons
The best time to see game is during the winter months (April - September), as water is restricted to rivers and waterholes, where the wildlife congregates. Visibility is also good as the vegetation is less dense. Summer (October to March) is lovely due to the rains - everything is lush and green, and the birding is excellent. November and December are the calving months.
Wildlife
You should see: elephant, giraffe, zebra, buffalo, warthog, lion, spotted hyaena, baboon, hippo, impala, kudu, vervet monkey, waterbuck, tsessebe, wildbeest, bushbaby, mongoose, duiker, steenbok, klipspringer, genet, bats.
You may see: leopard, wild dog, cheetah, roan antelope, sable antelope, bat-eared fox, rhino, honey badger, porcupine, rhebok, aardvark, aardwolf, civet, caracal, serval, suni.
Birds
You should see: vultures, owls, bee-eaters, rollers, eagles, bustards, hornbills, starlings, shrikes.