Kruger National Park
Our tour starts in Pretoria or Johannesburg
from where we will travel to Sabie in Mpumalanga. Here we
will stay for two nights. From here we will visit various lovely
waterfalls and also visit little towns like Pelgrims
Rest. On 22nd September 1873 Pilgrim's Rest was officially proclaimed a
gold field. The diggers called it Pilgrim's Rest because here, at last,
after so many false trails and faded dreams they had truly found their home.
From Sabie we will travel
to the Kruger national Park where we spend the next three nights. The first
explorer to set foot in the region was the Dutchman François de Cuiper who led a Dutch East India Company expedition to
explore. However, the expedition was attacked and driven by 
local tribes-people near Gomondwane.
Later hunters from all over the world came to hunt in the area. This caused the
number of game to dramatically decrease due to hunting and trading of animal
skins and horns.
President Paul Kruger was
told about the rapid destruction of wildlife in the area by hunters, after
which he succeeded to persuade the Transvaal
parliament to establish a protected area for the wildlife in the Lowveld region. The Park was opened to the public in
1927 for visitors to view animals and plant life in a
area where they are protected. The park also hosts the big five. For a
close encounter with the night life and also one of the big five if you are
lucky, a night drive will be undertaken.
After we left the Park we will travel 70km to the miners town of Barberton
where we will stay for the night. Barberton
is often called the jewel of Lowveld. This town is
older than the city of Johannesburg
and was founded in 1884 by Graham Barber. A flood of diggers arrived on the
scène. On June 1884 David Wilson, mining commissioner of the De Kaap Valley, broke a bottle of gin over a lump of rock to
christen the town, thus launching it on a lively career. During 1886 Barberton was at the
height of its boom. You will have the afternoon to explore the town on your own
and visit all the curios shops and learn more of the building style and history
of the town.
From Barberton
we will travel back to Gauteng
were we will take you to your Hotel but not before we stoppend
at Waterval Boven and Waterval Onder. The area around the Elands River
Falls was given the 
names "Waterval Boven" and "Waterval Onder" which means "above the falls" and
"below the falls" respectively. The history of the area is closely
tied with that of the railway that was built between Pretoria
and Delagoa Bay, and the Nederlandsche
Zuid Afrikaansche Spoorweg, the Dutch rail company, who established a railway
supply depot here in 1895.
The towns of Waterval Boven and Waterval Onder are rich with
South African (Anglo-Boer) War history and the area was fiercely contested by the
British towards the end of the war. Visitors can see a memorial at the station
which commemorates the many men who lost their lives while building this
section of the railway, while it is still possible to take a walk through the
historic ZASM tunnel through which the trains used to pass. At the end of the
tunnel is a beautiful waterfall that moves along the Elands River.
President Paul Kruger lived in Waterval Onder for a month before going into exile in Austria in
1900.
This will be a holiday to remember for the rest of your life. We will travel in a luxury bus and you will be spoiled all the way.