kgalagadi safari
 

Has anyone had any experience with African wildlife tours, run by Joy Hawksley-Hill? Her safari to Kgalagadi looks appealing. If anyone has used her services before, I would appreciate an evaluation.
Thanks.

topping

Joey,

A link to a website would be helpful. I typed in her name to Yahoo, but nothing came up.

Not about this specific person, but a friend and I am renting a car from Upington, and driving the route in Kgalagadi ourselves staying at very cheap rest camps and doing it the South African way. I figure if we two docs cannot start the braii fire, then we can find some South African to help!! Again I know that Americans seem to be feaaful of doing this, but I figure after many safaris where I found animals that the guides didn't, we can do this cheaply ourselves. The car comes to 3400R for 7 days,(split between us) and the rest camps per person are 1800R!! We'll pack steaks and pasta, eggs, bacon and sandwiches into the cooler, and have a week vacation for less than Roccocco spends for 1 night! I'll report after the trip in November. I figure my experience rocking out of the snow in Boston will get me out of the sand. In Morocco, when I got stuck, millions of small children materialized and helped me out. Hopefully there are enough San left to do this.

Kim

Different horses for different courses.

My wife makes the valid argument of why would we want to vacation (and pay money) at a place that is not even as nice as our home?

Of course, we don't want to take home with us, but it is important for us, and many others, to stay at nice places, and for me, that may mean Singita or it may mean Kafunta Island Bush Camp, a $200 per person per night bush camp that is nearly completely open to the elements (including hippos).

It would not even seem like a holiday to me if it was self-drive and self-catered. Plus, I don't even think that night game drives are possible unless at a private lodge in one of their vehicles. Night game drives are such a major feature that it should be so easily dismissed as if someone camping will have a similar experience.

Actually night drives are offered at the bigger camps in their vehicles.

This is probably too late for you but we went on a tour of the Kruger with Joy Hawksley-Hill November 2005. We had a great time. Joy is very knowledgeable. She picked us up at the airport and dropped us off at our hotel then picked us up the next morning and we drove to the Kruger. She had made all the bookings at the Kruger for us. It is essential to get up early in the morning if you want to make the most of your trip and we were up every day at 3.50 am and out of the gate before 5 am.
Joy knows the park like the back of her hand and looked after us extremely well. The food she cooked was good. She was good company and only got cross when the monkeys invaded our refrigerator and stole all the fruit while we were away one time during the day.
We would certianly consider going with her again - it suited us down the the ground. My husband and I had her sole attention during the time we were with Joy.
She adapts things according to the needs of her passengers.