Day 11 South Africa - Final South Africa Game Drive

It was a cold night and I actually used not only the duvet but the blanket at the end of the bed as well. It felt close to 0C but our ranger told us it was 7C. Brrrrr! Not what you would was expect in August in Africa, haha! For the game drive I wore a short sleeved t-shirt, a long sleeved t-shirt, a pullover, my hoodie, a fleece and finally, my windbreaker. I had my head and ears covered and I was glad I brought some gloves, which were an afterthought during the packing process.

Some giraffes greeted us as soon as we were out of the gate. They seem just as curious about us and we were about them. 

As we drove along, we took a different route than we had gone on before and stopped at a locked gate which Matthew opened to let us through. With a few minutes we saw some buffalo, the last of the ‘big five’ for us to see in the park. The ‘big five’ incidentally are lion, leopard, elephant, rhino, and buffalo and they are so named because they are considered the most dangerous African animals to hunt on foot.

This private safari park we have been at for the past 3 days is known as a ‘big five’ park and they must have all of those animals to be certified as such. Apparently the buffalo we saw were purchased for that reason. They are fenced in so that the lions and leopards can’t hunt them and to keep them disease-free. A female buffalo is worth $100,000 USD, not to poachers, but as breeding stock. A male is worth even more. Yikes! I had no idea that private safari reserves do this just to give the tourists the ‘big five’ experience.

Anyway the buffalo were interesting to watch, especially the baby ones. They have quite a serious looking ‘rack’ on their heads and look like they could do some serious damage if provoked.

We saw lots of giraffes today and it never gets boring watching them move about. We did quite a bit of driving this morning without seeing anything but the ride was pleasant, especially after the sun started to work it’s magic.

Morning ‘coffee’ was spent on the banks of a hippo water hole. The scenery was simply gorgeous! Hippos don’t often come up out of the water but we were thrilled when they did. A couple of them were even fighting and grunting a bit. That’s a coffee break I won’t soon forget!

On the way back to the lodge we ran into zebras, more giraffes and some monkeys too!

Back in the room, I washed, packed and then we headed out at 10:30 AM for the trip back to Joburg. The only stops along the way were for lunch and facilities. We had lunch at Harrie’s Pancake House, a South African chain restaurant. I had one with a chicken, mushroom and cashew filling. There was quite a selection of different one including traditional sweet fillings, but liver, Thai chicken, and other interesting ones.

We arrived back in Joburg about 5:30 PM and are staying at the same place we were at last Tuesday.