A Big 5 (okay 3) Day Trip Safari During our Joburg Layover

Okay, so I'm all about doing an African Safari on a Budget! . When my travel mate and I were having a very difficult time putting together our travel plans for Zanzibar, we could not get around a very long layover in South Africa. Then it dawned on me ... I did a quick search and voila ; we can go on a day safari - woohoo!

For all the logistics, check out Pilanesberg National Park, an Easy Can't-Miss-It Safari from Johannesburg . We were already super happy with the pricing, then found a guy wanting to haggle a bit, so we ended up with a private sedan for only about $20 more total for the two of us. For around $350 for 2 people (half that being transportation from Johannesburg), we had a full day of awe and excitement! The 135,900 acre Pilanesberg National Park is packed with wildlife - wow!

We got picked up at 6:15 am at our hotel at the OR Tambo airport, donned in our very safari-looking outfits. Did we look like tourists or did we nail it? We didn't really know what we needed to bring due to somewhat standoffish communication so we probably had too much stuff, but at least we successfully got cash for our tour from the airport ATM (cash was our preference, not his)!

We were greeted by our host who was suddenly the opposite of standoffish, he put us in a car with his driver/friend (Sibusiso), and we were off!

We drove past platinum mines and sunflower fields and saw the kids in their uniforms on their way to school. The 2 + hours went by quickly enough, then we waited in the parking lot for the park guide from Kgabo Safaris to have us sign the form and tell us which truck to get on.The most important question - which is the best seat?! His answer (he obviously gets asked this daily)? "The one you choose." But I got him to give me a sneaky nod - it was the back. At least in the big truck it was. You are raised the highest and can see out the back, too. But hold on to your kidneys! It's a bumpy ride!

The driver/guide is very comical and does a great job of sighting wildlife as he drives along. We were also lucky to have a few folks (in our group of 10) that run their own safari outfit (a hunting one somewhere 200k north of there), so they were excellent at sighting animals! Of course one elderly woman was not happy with the fact that seeing animals was not promised. "That's not what we signed up for." LOL What?! Okay, we'll contact the animals on Instagram and make sure they show up. But it started off with a bang with a gorgeous spiral antlered kudu. Then a ton of impala, some zebra and cool birds. Then some elephant in the distance. A giraffe very close to the road! Cool - look at all the little birds on him! :) Wow, this is amazing!

It's difficult to express what it's like seeing all these large animals in the wild all living together. Now granted, this particular park is a fenced game reserve, but it's still a natural area and there's no separation between these animals. So yeah sometimes it felt like being in the San Diego Wild Animal Park haha but here all the animals can eat each other. We were exhausted from being so excited about it all! We were constantly on alert, taking it all in, seeing something new at every turn.

We went on to see white rhino, a yellow hornbill bird (flying banana), a kori bustard (largest flying bird). This was all still within the first hour!! By the end of the 3 hour tour (which finished the old lady and her entourage's time with us), we had seen lions from afar, a very close elephant, soooo many kudu, impala and zebra, some wildebeest/gnu (I can't help but think of Gary Gnu the newscaster), more giraffes, and 3 more rhinos. We were quite satisfied and at lunch thought we could easily finish our day too and be totally happy. But even lunch itself did not give us a rest from wildlife viewing. They put a salt lick out (I'm guessing right at lunch time so the animals know to come give a show). I thought it was pretty neat that there were a couple of wildebeest out front and some zebras in the shade. Then a few giraffe heads came bobbing along sticking out above the tops of the trees. They're coming this way! We ended up with 7 giraffes at the salt lick, awkwardly spreading their front legs to reach the salt. The zebras where running around, and the wildebeest were hanging in the sidelines. Wow. We loaded back into our big kick ass 4WD truck built for about 30(?) people with now only 7 of us, including the nice elderly man on his final hoorah holiday. We logged more rhinos, warthogs, elephants, a go-away bird, more impala (think Chevy), zebras, waterbuck, and oh so many butterflies just everywhere.It's hot and dusty and impossible to keep the dust off of the camera/phone lenses, but I tried my best. Had to keep my hair up in a clip and was a dirty mess, but I didn't care at all. I only knew I was going to need some ibuprofen that night! We finished right about at 3pm, tipped our guide R200 each, and had no energy to shop the souvenirs they had set up outside.

Flopped into the car and slept like the dead on the ride home. With traffic, we didn't get home until after 6PM. Dirty and ragged we looked like hell walking through the hotel. Shower, eat the leftover pizza from lunch, crash out. What a day!

Tour Companies

Kele Tours

Contact Sipho
Phone / WhatsApp +27 73 434 1698
R6000 2 people ($165 US pp)
transportation plus the 6 hour tour that includes lunch

MoAfrika Tours

Ultimate Pilanesberg Open Vehicle Day Tour
R2800 per person ($153 US pp)
transportation plus the 6 hour tour that includes lunch