The final day of leg one is 18km, but you have to walk it by lunchtime to allow enough time to fetch your vehicles that were left 6 days earlier at Pafuri. Those 6 days felt like a lifetime, the start of the journey, just 5 nights previously was so distant, and a shift had taken place inside of me. It was the first time I felt the full impact of living so close to nature for that long. No phone, no watch, no interruptions, just Kruger and nature’s full effect on the human spirit.
To ease the strain of 18km before lunch, most of the group took the option to leave their back packs up in a tree for us to collect later in the day on our way to Punda Maria where we would spend the night. The day felt easy, even though your legs have worked hard to cover the distance, the body has adapted and the hardened muscles didn’t complain.
We came across fresh lion tracks and Mark (our guide) pointed out where one of them had lay down for a while. A beautiful relaxed elephant encounter near the water also added to the sense of occasion as we snaked through the Mopani on that final morning of leg 1. But never too far from one’s mind is the return to the comforts of life. It’s bittersweet, in some ways one doesn’t want to leave the trail and immersion, but other parts of us craved that ice-cold drink and salty chips that the camp shop would offer.
The Vlakteplaas Ranger Station serves as the finish to the leg and we took our final group photos at the gate. We knew it was only a few short months until we would be back for the second leg which would start exactly where we left off. We crammed into the cars and headed for the camp, a feeling of deep satisfaction enveloped us. I wish I could hold onto that feeling of being spent, but at complete peace having experienced nature and the Kruger at a deeper level than I could imagine possible. It was indeed the beginning of something new for me that would ultimately take my life in a new direction, and I would follow through with the crazy thoughts of shifting my career and listening to the calling of becoming a trails guide myself.
Holding onto that feeling and satisfaction when re-entering the “real” world would prove difficult and still remains one of the biggest challenges. Phones, social media, expectations, junk food and a detachment from nature all suck that deep feeling of satisfaction out of your soul.
Far too many beers and braai meat was consumed into our bodies that had been purified by the first leg of The Kruger Trail and I woke feeling poisoned, the purity gone. Once I recovered from the hangover the affects of nature were still there, but they would only last a week or so, and we found ourselves longing for the second leg.
What I would learn is that a walk like this exposes a lot about yourself, your friends and your life. Leg 1 had been the honeymoon, everything seemed perfect. The legs to come would all be their own chapters. Nature reflects everything back, the good the bad and the ugly. The next 5 legs did exactly that, teaching us so much as we became the experience and the trail.
