World Travel – Africa Adventure 2022 – Lower Sabie Rest Camp – River & Bush Tents

Welcome to one of my favorite camps of the entire trip!! Lower Sabie Rest Camp in Kruger Park is on the banks of the perennial Sabie River, which draws a wide variety of animals all year round. Lower Sabie has views over the Sabie River and the Lebombo Mountains, which are a highlight of the Kruger National Park. 

Large numbers of game are attracted to the abundance of water, grasses and foliage in the vicinity of Lower Sabie Rest Camp. The area is also rich in Lion, Cheetah, Elephant, Hippopotamus, Rhino, herds of Buffalo up to 800 strong, and is known for its high density of Warthog. Lower Sabie Rest Camp has everything you need including electric, fuel station (selling petrol and diesel), expansive licensed restaurant called Mugg & Bean, cafeteria (offering convenience foods and coffee), laundromat, well-stocked shop (selling groceries, wine, beer and spirits, as well as a big selection of clothing, books and souvenir shopping in Kruger National Park), plus the addition of a swimming pool!

A range of lodging options is available from a luxurious guesthouse to family cottages, huts, bungalows, safari tents and campsites. We chose to stay in the River Tents on the first night then switched to the Bush Tents for the last night (due to availability when we booked). This is a view from our River Tent and what everything looked like in the “tent”.

We checked in to our River Tents and freshened up from the long drive from Olifants and had dinner at the restaurant- Mugg & Bean – it was awesome! Mark and I then returned to our tent and sat on the porch and enjoyed a bottle of African wine and watched for shooting stars and listened to all of the sounds of the wild. That was definitely the most exciting part of this camp – you can hear all the sounds – both thrilling and terrifying but knowing your safe inside the reenforced walls helped!

Here is a little iPhone photo dump from driving around and the signage that was around camp.

The next morning we had to move out of our River Tents and load everything into the car until we could check in to the Bush Tents that afternoon. That morning we took a drive to the Crocodile Bridge area. We got to see the Crocodile River and a whole new area of different vegetation as well as 1 of 9 entrances into the Kruger National Park. Crocodile Bridge Gate is the most eastern entrance to Kruger National Park and is on the border of South Africa and Mozambique.

In this area of the park we were blessed with our best male Lion sighting of the entire trip. We took a dirt road that had no one else on it at first and happened upon a male lion laying on the side of the dirt road. He let us admire him for a while and then got up and strolled right past us, crossed behind our vehicle and then gave away the location of his brother who was laying in the grass next to us. They bumped heads as a hello and then strutted away together. His poor brother was missing his tail, and you could tell they were truly bonded. AHHHHH it was incredible and if you listen to the video below you can hear me really start to lose it at the end lol! Plus we had wonderful and rare sightings of a lesser spotted eagle, a pair of eagle owls, and 2 black-backed jackals! It was a thrilling morning!

While we continued to wait until we could move into the Bush tents the group pretty much split up for the rest of the day. Some of us went to sit by the pool and some of us enjoyed drinks on the huge wooden deck which gave us an elevated view of the Sabie River. A very popular rugby match was playing on the tv’s on the deck and a large group of patrons got together to cheer on their teams and I immediately felt like I was back in Ohio watching a Buckeyes game at a local bar – it was such a fun atmosphere and unbelievable to look over to the river and see a herd of elephants passing by. We spent a lot of time in the restaurant eating wonderful food, enjoying some stellar cocktails and just looking out over the river. It’s a once in a lifetime view to see so many animals – I could have stayed there forever – especially because the US dollar goes far in South Africa and this place knows how to make a great drink!

Finally we were able to check into our new “tents” and relax for a bit before the last night safari of the trip. This is a view from our Bush Tent and what everything looked like in the “tent”.

Our final sunset in South Africa led into a fairly uneventful night drive – we saw the most common animals like impala, hyena, giraffe, elephants, scrub hares and some nocturnal birds… but no cats… until…. we spotted an African wildcat!!! They are so small compared to most of the cats in Africa (larger than a house cat but not by much) and I thought it would be like finding a needle in a haystack but there it was!

This was the night it really started to set in that the trip was almost over, and it was going to take awhile to even comprehend all that we had done and seen so far, hence why it’s almost a year later and I am finally putting it into words. We only had one more night to go and we were going to spend that in another luxury guest house – back to Skukuza for my final Africa trip post!

Did you miss any of the previous posts?

Read our full trip Itinerary here!
Read Post One – Germany here!
Read Post Two – Cape Town here!
Read Post Three – Wine Tour here!
Read Post Four – Penguins & Whales here!
Read Post Five – Skukuza Camp here!
Read Post Six – Satara Camp here!
Read Post Seven – Olifants Camp here!