Kruger National Park Crocodile Bridge

This is our second night here. We are getting used to the idea that we have a time shift. Although we camped at many different places in S.A. on our last trip here, and in several National Parks, none of them were Game Parks. We were in bed at 20.30 last night, read a bit, but were both asleep by 21.00. We were awake again this morning at 04.30 as the gates opened and people left to see the animals still clustered around the rivers and waterholes, and before they all retreated deep into the bush for the daylight hours. We dozed on a bit but got up around 06.30 and were on the game trail by 08.00. We saw lots of animals today,  the usual kudu and impala, but also yet roan antelope, wildebeest, rhino, hippo, crocodile, buffalo, yet more elephants and some zebra. There are far fewer zebra than I expected. In Tanzania I was used to seeing herds of them, mixed in with wildebeest, maybe there will be more as we go further north. The high spot of the day was when we stopped off at a hide overlooking the river, where several hippos were wallowing in the shallow water. We saw the snouts of several crocodile floating past, and one up on the bank. There were countless terrapins and frogs.
The birds are wonderful, and probably of more interest than the animals, which you can become quite blasé about. Today we saw so many we couldn't identify, but certainly lots of weaver birds, a vulture sitting on it's next and a stunning lilac breasted roller. We looked in the campsite shop for a bird guide, but they were all in Afrikaans. We are at a bigger camp tomorrow, so we may be able to get one from the shop there.
Most South Africans we have spoken have said how good it will be in Zimbabwe. The general message seems to be that conditions there are not as bad as U.K. media reports it. In fact one woman we spoke to, when we told her whereabouts we intended to go, said, without obvious rancour, that her aunt used to have a farm there until the government 'reclaimed' it. We are so pleased that we have decided to go, although I have my doubts about getting to speak to any black Zimbabweans. Once again, camping in S.A., campers are exclusively white. Unfortunately we didn't get to Johannesburg but even in Pretoria it was obvious that there was a vibrant, educated and skilled, black 'middle-class'. We didn't go to any expensive restaurants, frequenting café, bistro style places, as it is more our thing. The clientele was almost exclusively black, young, vibrant, smartly dressed. In fact we had an anxious moment on one occasion when we saw a notice which said, 'no sandals, shorts or caps after 18.30'. It was after 18.30, we were both wearing sandals and John was wearing shorts. As we were  40 to 50 years older than anyone else there and white, I guess they made an exception.
As with the last trip here, the main question I have is about 'poor' whites. It seems to me that there are very affluent blacks, lots of well-off whites, reasonably well-off blacks and whites, and poor blacks. While we were at the road works on the N4 for example, we saw what seemed to be black and white 'boss-men', striding around with mobile phones, in hard hats, directing operations, but all the workers were black.
Tomorrow we move northwards to another camp and we have three nights there.