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| Where else in the world could you get a photo like this of a giraffe, taken in Marloth Park in 2019? Only Marloth Park offers such wonders daily, often referred to as Paradise on Earth. |
Note: To all of our readers visiting our site via a smartphone, please click the “View web version” tab under the word “Home” at the bottom of the page to access the web version enabling you to access all of our archives on the right side of the page. We’ll be updating our site in a few months, making these extra steps unnecessary. Thank you.
Videos will resume in tomorrow’s post.
During Covid-19, we have been communicating back and forth with our dear friend, Louise Thiart, with whom we became special friends after meeting her on December 2, 2013, when we first arrived in Marloth Park to rent a holiday home for three months.
As owners/property managers of multiple properties in the stunning wildlife conservancy, literally a traveler’s “paradise on Earth,” Louise exhibited the most customer-service-orientated and welcoming encounter one could imagine possible.
Our relationship grew into a treasured lifelong friendship with both Louise and her husband Danie from that first encounter. On day two after our arrival, Danie arrived at our door with an invitation to meet Jabula Restaurant and Lodge owner Leon.
Danie had arranged for Leon to pick us up at 5:00 pm that evening for a safari-type tour of Marloth Park and take us to dinner afterward at his restaurant. During that three-month period, we hadn’t rented a car.
Instead, we used the services of a local driver Louise had recommended, nicknamed Okie Dokie, with whom we’ve also stayed still in touch and adore. Good friends are made in Marloth Park.
We’d rented the bush house at 677 Hornbill, found at this link as one of many properties described on Louise’s site at this link. The three-month experience was indescribable, with myriad experiences we could hardly believe possible amid the wildlife in Marloth Park and Kruger National Park, a 20-minute drive down the road.
(For photos and stories during this period if using a cell phone, please see our archives at the right side of our page, beginning December 2, 2013, after following the above steps at the beginning of this post, entitled “Note.” If using an iPad or computer, the archives are easily available by year and month by clicking on the small arrow next to the year and month to see the myriad photos and experiences during those three months).
When we left Marloth Park in February 2014, we were sad to leave. Without a doubt, visiting Marloth Park was the most exciting, inspiring, and heartwarming experience of our lives of world travel and has remained so as we’ve continued to explore the world.
In 2018, almost four years later, we returned to celebrate my 70th birthday with Louise and Danie and the many wonderful friends we’d made in the park and to experience once again the awe and wonder of the wildlife that roam among the bush houses in the park. At that time we stayed for 15 months (including several visa extensions).
We were never disappointed. Each day presented a new surprise, whether it was 25 kudus stopping by the veranda for pellets, 60 mongooses pleading for raw eggs, or the humorous antics of warthogs who are masterful at gaining our attention.
I often commented to Tom and others how each time “they” (the wildlife) appeared in our garden, we felt of rush of good hormones rushing through us, with the sheer joy of their presence.
And now, sadly, Covid-19, with its many travel restrictions in South Africa and throughout the world, these stunning holiday homes sit empty, awaiting a time when travelers can be on the move once again.
What better a place to visit when the restrictions are lifted? Living in a holiday home will continue to provide avoidance of crowds that typical travel accommodations don’t offer. But, living in a typical holiday home in a neighborhood may not be different from lockdown.
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| Khaya Umdani |
Adding the joy of daily visits from wildlife, the ease of shopping at small local shops and dining in bush restaurants, a stay in a bush home in Marloth Park is one of the best travel experiences on the planet, safe from crowds, safe from crowded public tourist venues, and a stunning respite after months in lockdown.
This, dear readers, is why we constantly watch the news about South Africa and India re-opening airports to international travelers to travel to our favorite place in the world.
If Covid-19 is around for some time and with me being high risk, there is no better a place in the world for us to travel from lockdown in India. Even if the South African government requires we stay in voluntary quarantine for 30 days, we won’t mind a bit, as long as we’re in Marloth Park, where we’ll be entertained from the veranda every day.
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| Giraffe Crossing/Pan American Safaris |
Please visit Louise’s site here for more properties than those shown here in today’s photos and contact Louise at info@marlothkruger.com or by phone listed on the site. Also, you can freely click on the links in the caption of each of the above photos for more details with additional properties listed on the site.
We encourage all of our readers, wondering where they”ll take their much-needed holiday after the end of Covid-19 lockdown throughout the world, to contact Louise for the once-in-a-lifetime experience or one you may repeat year after year.
Don’t hesitate to get in touch with Louise for Covid-19 booking discounts (made directly through her), and of course, all 10% booking deposits are fully refundable during times of Covid-19.
Stay safe. Follow the guidelines for safety and, of course, like us, dream of the future and the joys yet to come.
Photo from one year ago today, May 8, 2019:
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Lots of mongooses in the garden in Marloth Park. For more photos from this date, please click here.
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