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Sunday, June 13. 2010South African savannah safari
The reserve we visited is 550 km in diameter made up by a volcano – the second biggest geological formation of its kind in the world and is centred with a large lake – we were picked up by our local ranger, Kirsty, who took us through the south gates and drove us North West for a spot of lunch before continuing on for an afternoon and evening safari drive. Through the twists and turns of the bumpy tracks, originally made by English settler’s cartwheels we saw a large male Bull Elephant within minutes, closely followed by a white rhino and calf – amazing! Two of the big 5 within half an hour of being in the reserve! Exotic birds such as the giant kingfisher were spotted and as the sun started to go down on the horizon like a scene from Jurassic Park we saw a tower of Giraffes munching away – we needed to get closer and boy did we! Up close and personal with the tall beasts was humbling to say the least. As we lost the last of the sun the change in temperature was instant and a two minute eerie silence began where the change between day and night brought out jackals, grazing buffalo and various birds which started to shriek and chirp marking their territory. We thought that when the sun went down we had lost all change of catching a big cat – how wrong we were. We pulled up by a stinking decomposing Hippo which was being nibbled at by a couple of Jackals – in the silence after a while we heard a ROAR – a very close ROAR – a Lion! But where was it? It was strange being in the big cat’s arena completely exposed and vulnerable – fortunately once we had located the cat in the glow of the night torches we saw a sleeping giant, obviously snoozing after having his fill. What an experience – we got to see four of the big 5! We fly to Cape Town tomorrow and go straight to The Green Point Stadium to see Italy v Paraguay – back on the football trail – we plan on adding to the big 5 to see the Super 7 (great whites and whales included). I’m not sure if I fancy cage diving with great white sharks – but some gentle whale watching will certainly be on my to do list. Next blog from Cape Town... Trackbacks
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getbracknell - Reading Evening Post
My South African World Cup adventure is not just about watching world class football, but a cultural and historical voyage of discovery. Being 20 km away from the Pilansburg game park it would have been rude not to take advantage of the possibility of seeing Africa’s big 5.
