Some of you may know from the N&W forum that I just returned from a week long trip to South Africa a few days ago. Since this is post number 5,000 for me, I thought I would make it a big one, and share a few photos from my trip.
The journey was a long one, but well worth it. The wife and I spent a total of 5 days just to get to and from the park/resort that we spent a week at. It was a long time to spend on planes, buses and cars just to get to our room, but I would do it all over again in a second.
The package that we purchased included all our meals,and two photo trips per day within a private gave reserve. We had the option to go to other parks/reserves in the area as well.
We spent a night in Johannesburg when we first arrived in South Africa. We were only there for a night, and left early in the morning to catch another plane to take us closer to our final destination. I woke up in the middle of the night and couldn't get back to sleep so I went outside and took some photos of a fountain right outside of our room.
Once we got checked into our room we killed a little time, then went on our first game drive of the trip. What a blast! I could have done this all day, and in fact we did spend 12 hours in an open top truck on one of our days.
We saw a ton of wart hogs, impala, nyalas, kudus, wildebeests, zebras and tons of cool birds.
A hippo staying cool in the pond.
Vervet Monkey
Zebra outside our room.
One of the other places we had the option of visiting was a rehabilitation center for wild cats. The wife and I are not big fans for house cats, but we love big wild cats! We knew we were guaranteed to see some big cats so we went to check it out. They had 4 of the 7 big cats at this facility. They had African wildcats, serval cats, caracals, and cheetahs. The african wildcats look pretty much like a house cat. In fact they breed with house cats. The serval cats are beautiful! Once they fed the serval cats, we were allowed to go in the cage with them to get a closer view.
As pretty as all the other cats were, I was there for the cheetah!
We were also allowed to go into the cheetah pen once it was fed. Once inside, the handler would let the cheetah lick the blood from the food, out of the food bucket. While the cheetah was busy with it's head in the bucket, you were allowed to pet it. I did not pet it as I was too busy taking photos.
This one was taken before it was fed, from outside the pen.
Here are a few pics from the day we spent 12 hours in the truck exploring Hluhluwe/Imfolozi game reserve.
A couple of giraffes on the ridge as the sun was trying to come out.
It was a foggy morning.
We came across some women gathering materials for thatching roofs. Not sure I would want to be out there wandering around with lions, and elephants!
Some water buffalo taking it easy as a crane stalks it's lunch.
Another trip we took was to the Tembe Elephant Park. They have a blind set up at a watering hole so you can sit and wait to see what for the elephants, and anything else that may happen along. I could have stayed here all day long.
This elephant we found along the road. It's truck had a large hole ripped in it from were it had been caught in a snare a long time ago. You can't see it in this photo. The elephant seemed to be doing fine despite the damage.
These next few shots are from the blind. There is a web cam at the blind so you can check it out yourself, just remember the time difference. www.zulucam.com
This is a very rare 5 legged elephant!
Mom and baby.
We stopped at a little market one day, and I couldn't resist taking this little boys photo.
After the market we took a boat tour of the St. Lucia Estuary. We saw lots of hippos, crocodiles, and tons of birds! Most of our trips seemed to be at the worst time of the day for photos, and the St. Lucia trip was the worst. Bright sun straight over head, reflecting off the water made taking photos very difficult.
Despite the challenges, we made sure we enjoyed ourselves, and saw and did as much as we could while we were there. We had a great guide for the week, and the accomodations and food were great. Not to mention the other people we met there as well. It was a great trip, and one I don't see us repeating anytime soon, so I'm glad we took the opportunity when it presented itself.
Here are a few more shots to close out the post.
Zebra close up from right outside our room.
A burchell's coucal
A photo from the Johannasburg airport while we were waiting for a plane to take us home.