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.
