Our First Wedding Anniversary In The Kruger National Park

As I sit hear and listen to two of my favourite night sounds, the Scops Owl and Fiery-necked Nightjar, I feel so thankful that we are back in the Kruger National Park. We are staying at Berg-en-dal, and there is a bit of a story to this article, one of four of one of the, if not the, most amazing trip we have ever had to the Kruger National Park.

The planning started in February 2018. It was our first year wedding anniversary and I wanted to surprise Aimee with a trip to the place we adore the most. The planning and logistics were intense. I had a lot of help from Ashlyn, Aimee’s sister, and it went like this.

I booked us a two-night stay at Berg-en-dal, in Bungalow 15, which we got by default. There were only 2 units left, so I was extremely fortunate. Our anniversary is on the 26^th of May, so I had time once the booking was successfully secured.

The anticipation was killing me and I wanted to tell her so bad that we were going to the Kruger. But that was a no-no. It felt like years and it was killing me!

Ashlyn managed to get Aimee off work on the Friday for our weekend stay. There was another problem after that though. Aimee was studying further for her teaching qualification, and she was supposed to have class on that Saturday! I was upset. Thankfully someone was watching down on us and the class got moved to the following month, it was all falling into place.

The week of our anniversary finally came along and Aimee kept asking me what we were doing, and I sort of shrugged it off like our one-year anniversary wasn’t anything special, she was starting to get upset.

Ashlyn then started her preparation for us. She packed everything in the week, our clothes, essentials, cameras, binoculars etc. She managed to do this without Aimee even knowing what was going on. She did tell me she tried to find a pair of warm socks she liked and they were missing, so she thought they were in the wash. Ashlyn did an amazing job! She even packed the boot of the car on Friday morning.

I then did what I do every day. I dropped Aimee off at work on Friday as usual. Ashlyn organized some flowers for me and I waited at a nearby petrol station. She messaged and gave me the signal. Everyone was in on it now and her boss Claudia, and manager Wanda, helped a lot as well.

Claudia called her into her office to ask about her studies. I walked in, knocked on the door and handed Aimee the flowers (Have a look at the video below). Everyone was standing outside to see her reaction. She initially thought I was taking her out for the day and wondered why it couldn’t wait until our actually anniversary the next day. I then told her we were off to the Kruger National Par. She was in complete shock, and it only really hit her when we were about an hour out of Johannesburg!

So we were off, and little did we know it, but this would be the best trip we had ever had in the Kruger National Park… What a wedding anniversary it was!

Read about our trip below –

I have to thank all the staff, teachers, Claudia, Wanda and especially Ashlyn for all the help, it would not have been possible without them.