• Elephant, rhino, lion, leopard, buffalo - and that’s not all. The world famous Kruger National Park – one of the best-loved parks in the world – offers day-trippers the possibility of seeing an exciting variety of animals, plants and trees. From Nelspruit, you can enter the park via a number of gates, and plan the day’s route to include a lunch break at one of the camps or picnic spots. The sub-tropical town of Hazyview is one of the main gateways into the Kruger Park and great for shopping and stopping.

If you can find another extra day in-between match fixtures, check out the following day-tripper scenarios:

  • Don’t miss Mpumalanga's greatest wonder, the 25km-long Blyde River Canyon. A major feature of the Panorama Route, the canyon is the third largest in the world, and makes for an excellent day trip from Nelspruit. Highlights of the canyon include the Three Rondavels, God’s Window and the Bourke’s Luck Potholes. The Panorama Route includes the cliff top town of Graskop where you can do the world's highest cable gorge swing with a 68m freefall.

  • Pop into Pilgrim’s Rest where gold was first discovered in South Africa. You can go panning for gold in the streams here.

  • The Long Tom Pass from Sabie to Lydenburg, or vice versa, has all the right ingredients for a great day trip. The 57km Long Tom is named after the 15cm gun used by the Boers in the South African (Anglo Boer) War and nicknamed Long Tom by the British. (It was here that the British attacked and the Boers withdrew, up the pass, firing back at the British all the way).

  • Screaming Monster, Devil's Pulpit, Weeping Madonna, Samson's Pillar, Lover's Lane, Whispering Tunnel, the Wolf. These are just some of the names of the weird dripstone formations and tunnels at the world's oldest dolomite caves, at Sudwala. One particularly vivid dripstone, the Space Rocket, is 11m high. Take a tour of these amazing caves that provided shelter to our oldest ancestors and to exiled Swazi kings – it is even the alleged hiding place of the legendary treasure, the Kruger Millions.

For the best of both worlds, combine your wildlife adventure with a sun and sea break – Durban is just a few hours away.



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