Road to Kruger

The trip to Kruger from Jo-berg is 450 Kilometers or about 300 miles. South Africa is a large country and thus has many natural resources and a variety of landscapes but I was amazed to see so many I saw in just the 4 hour drive to Kruger. From the gold mines near Jo-berg to the mountains at Kruger, the country side had large swaths of coal mining, corn (miille) fields, tangerines (najes) trees, as well as many other vegetables and fruits and mining operations (platinum. and other metals). It was like driving through West Virginia, Florida, Kansas and Colorado in one 4 hour trip.
    According to our van driver, Hussein, the towns near the park have grown as people move out of Johannesburg and towards the various natural resource industry as they have developed. Also transplants come from Mozambique which is on the north border of the park (according to Hussein some Mozambique people looking to come across the border chose to try and walk through Kruger park. They were eaten by lions. Unfortunately some of them had aids and thus there is now concern that the lions have contracted a form of the disease.)
   Kruger park is a huge wildlife reserve about the size of Rhode Island. The animals are monitored for disease but are not fed or interacted with in any other way.  There are various paved roads, dirt roads and watering holes that you can drive to. You cannot leave your vehicle and if lions are nearby you must roll up the windows.  June/July (winter months -no snow but cooler temperatures)) are supposed to be the best time to see the animals.