Logistics

 Everything for this trip was booked as a combination of internet/ phone calls. Thanks to Doug Pearson for his help.

 Our international flights were booked through dialaflight.com and we flew with Lufthansa. From Johannesburg to Hoedspruit we flew with South African Airlines, the car that we picked up there was booked through Avis (as South Africa Car Hire). We hired a mobile phone for our stay, this was through Vodafone and had a fixed charge for rental, calls were charged on top of this. We were initially charged an amount to include loss/ damage of the phone which was later refunded to the card.

 Our stay in the park was booked directly with SANParks. We initially looked at their website to help us decide on our itinery and then I phoned to make the booking. We had initially planned just staying at Mopani and Lower Sabie but, the gentleman I spoke to at SANParks recommended breaking our journey with a stay at Satara. This was an excellent recommendation, it is easy to under estimate distances in the park, especially bearing in mind the speed limit and there being so much to see. We might have been able to do the journey if, we didn’t stop at all (quite impossible!). We also purchased a Wild Card; this meant our conservation fees were already paid for when we arrived. As we had an ‘all clusters’ card, this was also used when we were in Cape Town.

 After we left the park, we flew with Nationwide Airlines from Nelspruit to Cape Town (Via Johannesburg). Again, the number was obtained from the internet and I phoned to make the booking.

 We collected a car at Cape Town Airport that was booked (online) with Tempest/Sixt car hire.

 Our accommodation in Cape Town was at Afton Grove, again booked through a combination of internet and phone calls. (The phone call was to give payment details, all other arrangements were made online).

 Whilst in Cape Town, we went out on a Pelagic. This was all booked online and paid through our local bank.

 We had booked our flight to Johannesburg (to return home) through Kulula (a local budget airline), all booked online. Unfortunately there were various technical problems so, we didn’t actually fly with them!

 Most of this trip was paid for when booking. We only had one actual ticket (for our Nationwide flight), everything else was in the form of e-tickets and email confirmation. This was a little disconcerting as, we have never been totally independent travellers before!

 In order to ensure that everything was to hand, I bought an A5 ring bound folder and a number of plastic pockets. Each pocket was labelled according to which part of the trip it was referring to. I took print outs of all correspondence that we had received for each part of the trip (most of which wasn’t needed). However, this filing method ensured that at each stage we had the required documents immediately accessible and, with so many it was very useful.

 We took a combination of South African Rand and Travellers Cheques (and a credit card). [It is important to note, that if you have booked flights etc. using a credit card, you are often asked for that credit card (as further proof of I.D.) when checking in]. We knew from our research, that we would not be able to change money in the park and, whilst the cash machines now seem to be more widespread, they are dependant on phone lines and don’t always work. Also, you cannot pay for petrol using a credit card. It must be either cash or a garage card (I’m not sure if they are available to non-residents).

Costings are detailed below (in GBP and total cost for both of us)