The Wildest Hike On Earth?

The Kruger Trail is an epic hiking route that traverses South Africa’s favourite national park. It’s a bushveld pilgrimage, where the call of a pearl-spotted owlet or the glare of a buffalo determines where you walk and where you camp.

- Esma Marnewick

Imagine shouldering your backpack and walking out of the gate at Lower Sabie. Walking, not driving.

That’s exactly what I did earlier, with my husband Tobie, freelance field guide Pete Wilson from Barberton, and SANParks Honorary Ranger Louis Lemmer from Pretoria. We headed into the veld behind Sunset Dam just west of the rest camp, next to the H4-1. Over the course of the next six days, we’ll hike nearly 100 km, zigzagging through the veld to Malelane rest camp (about 58 km away as the crow flies), carrying everything we’ll need on our backs. This is the final section of the Kruger Trail, a new route that traverses the park from north to south. There are six sections in total, which you hike over three years (see sidebar on page 44). Louis is the guy in charge of the trail and he’s already hiked the first five sections. When he’s done with this one, he’ll have walked the entire length of the Kruger Park.

“You spend time in places where most people never set foot,” he says. “Places where there haven’t been humans in years; places where even the rangers seldom go.”

It’s almost 9 am. I can hear a lion roaring. “There were five different prides around here last night,” Pete says. “There was a fight and dominance is being re-established.”

The red soil is littered with animal tracks: hippo, lion, buffalo… We come to a big muddy wallow – a so-called sodic site – usually made by an elephant. All animals love a mud bath, especially rhinos, buffalo and warthogs – the mud protects their skin against parasites and it’s a great way to cool down.

“Fly over the Kruger in the middle of the day and there will be a buffalo in almost every wallow,” Louis says.