(Nomad: Day 1505),
Kruger, South Africa,
First day in the official park, I drove around from the Phalaborwa gate, trying to find good spots away from the main road. It is great that we are allowed to self-drive around this park, I can thus explore better and find places to record from. The entire park area is huge, so I chose just a portion of the park to explore for these 2 days. As it is forbidden and not recommended to get out of the vehicle outside delimited zones, I tried to record from the car, which works only if I wait a few minutes, the time the car needs to cool down, otherwise there are some metal clicks that can be heard. I also get to ‘hides’, where you can get outside the car and find quiet places (if there is nobody inside). I chose not to record with drop rig this time, as I got much bad luck using this technique lately, I only have 2 recorders left, so I prefer to save them for later.
I saw some elephants and even recorded one trumpet from a distance.
I drove to my camp for the night, it is a Bushvelt camp which is smaller and more primitive. Even though there was electricity, there was no phone signal and no possible communication with the outside world.
Sadly I was not alone there, so it was not possible to record sound from the camp. I drove a little outside at sunset and got beautiful ambiences before the dark. This morning I woke up early before the sunrise to be able to record the dawn at the same place. Today I have the entire day in Kruger and will reach another camp for the night.