South Africa Holidays

HIGHLIGHTS: Johannesburg - Greater Kruger Area

Track the 'Big 5' through the stunning wilderness of world-renowned Kruger National Park-one of the largest and most diverse wildlife areas in Africa. Add to the mix a visit to the village of Shalati to meet the beneficiaries of a Planeterra project, an up-close encounter with the region's rhythms, a traditional dinner-and you have a complete camping experience.

Day 1 Johannesburg Arrive at any time. Welcome meeting in the evening.

Day 2 Greater Kruger Area Drive through scenic mountains and valleys, experience traditional a Shaagan dinner and dance, visit Shalati village and a community project supported by Planeterra.

Days 3-4 Kruger National Park Daily game drives in own vehicle. Optional sunrise/sunset open vehicle game drives.

Day 5 Depart Johannesburg Early morning optional guided bush walk. Depart upon arrival in Johannesburg in the late afternoon

Get up close and personal with the animals and get involved in the daily running of the centre. Prepare to flex your muscles and get a tan whilst assisting with the building of new enclosures and checking the state of game park fences so that nothing can get in or out.

You can expect to get involved with preparing food for the animals - this is important as there are many cubs, and without the volunteers there would not be enough staff to prepare these for the ever growing animals. Your help is also needed in cleaning out enclosures; due to the number of animals, a lot of help is needed to complete these tasks as well as feeding and preparing the food for the animals.

You can even get involved in bottle feeding if you want to.

This elephant park was born from the struggle of elephants in the Knysna Forest who, for many years, were able to roam freely in their natural forest habitat. Today, sadly their habitat has been encroached to such an extent that few now live in the wild.

The founders of this project grew up in the local area and were deeply affected by the plight of the local elephants - help out by bottle feeding orphaned baby elephants that need some extra TLC, providing feed for the adult elephants, observing and researching them and general park maintenance. Extra weeks $380*.

As a volunteer you will be assisting with sports activities at a school in the disadvantaged community of Ocean View. There are approximately 1200 children and only 34 teachers at the school and although the school would really love to be in a position to employ a full time sport specialist they are unable to do so for financial reasons. You will be able to select the sports that you are interested in coaching, whether it is football, netball or athletics. You also have the opportunity to introduce other games and sports, but please note that the equipment may not necessarily be available.

If you wish to coach a different sport, you can bring some basic equipment with you which would be great if you could also donate to the programme. Children from the disadvantaged communities often have very little. Most children have never played football with a real ball before and usually use footballs made up of crushed plastic bags that have been tied together. Just by being able to organise the a game of football with a real ball will make such a big difference to the children! Extra weeks from just $210*

Get involved in a project where the Vervet monkey is the epicentre of everyone's attention. If you're not into Vervet monkeys then this isn't the project for you. Everything you do here is with the precious primates in mind, whether that is preparing food, washing, cleaning, cooking - you're all working together for the same cause.

There are approximately 500 vervet monkeys in the 25 hectare sanctuary near Kruger National Park, with over 10 large enclosures and many smaller introduction cages. The foundation has a sickbay on site to treat injured or sick monkeys, has 12 local volunteer staff in addition to the volunteers.