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Published: March 26th 2010
Spring Hare
Apparently we were lucky to see one of these as they normally never come out during the dayBill and I had a couple more outings while he was here. We came back in to PE on Tuesday and had the braai with my roomies. Wednesday, my grade 9s at school had testing so I had a couple extra classes open, so Bill and I were able to go to Addo for the afternoon. I figured it was a national park and only 40 minutes from PE, so he had to go. The day that the girls and I went, about a month and a half ago, was very hot and drove all of the elephants to the waterholes. Wednesday was a little cloudy and not nearly as warm so they weren’t out in droves like before. But we still got to see quite a few elephants and a few other animals as well. Bill of course discussed all of the ones he wanted mounted on his wall, I think that it was killing him to have to just enjoy the beauty of these animals and not be able to shoot them! Kentucky boys…
Then we came back to go out to dinner with Ali for her last night. Ali’s mom, who got into town the day after
Bill but we hadn't met yet, was very funny and nice. And the restaurant had great food. We ate at the boardwalk at a place called 34° South and is named such for the latitude of PE, South Africa. The wine and food was delicious. I was sad to see my buddy leave though.
Thursday, Bill came to school with me to observe all the “funky stuff” here! I think that he enjoyed it, it’s very different and I’m glad he got to experience it. We also were invited to Schotia safaris on Thursday afternoon. This is the same place that the girls and I went to and slept in the bush. When we went there Justin, our guide, commented on my National Guard bag, so I asked Bill to bring him one. He was so excited that he gave us a free afternoon drive and dinner!! And it ended up being the best we’d been on!
Justin picked us up from school and drove us straight to our truck for the safari. And we proceeded to have the best afternoon yet! First news was that the croc we took pictures with the last time I was at
Dung beetle
It's SO funny, these guys are actually protected in the park and you are not allowed to run them, or the elephant poop in the road, over Schotia with my roommates, was actually sitting on a nest! I said before that Justin had told us they wouldn’t be mature for some time, so the fact that she was sitting in the same place for two weeks didn’t really alarm anyone. But apparently a few weeks ago, 13 baby crocs crawled out of the spot! And best of all, this is the first time, recorded, that crocs have mated and given “birth” in the wild in South Africa! So cool news! That picture we have with the croc a month or so back is actually a mama on her nest!
We drove around and saw all of the usual, zebras, wildebeest, hartebeests, giraffes, springboks, etc. Then, our guide took us up to find the lions. We checked out mama and one of her sons (who I did not see the last time I was here) for a while and spotted the rhinos across the fence. So, after tea, we headed toward the rhinos and they were just wandering around grazing. The last time that I was there, they were just napping, and at Kariega the grass was really tall, so this was the best rhino sighting
Male Kudu
This was the big one Bill was fake shooting I’d had. And then this is where it gets ugly, so for those of you that don’t have the strongest of stomachs, or don’t enjoy a good gory story, I would stop reading here...
Back across the fence, where we had seen a couple of the lions before tea, we heard some crazy squealing…the lions had caught a warthog. So, our guide turned to us and asked if we were happy with our pictures of the rhinos and all agreed we were satisfied, so we tore off back across the fence to try and check out the action. When we got there we spotted one of the young males carrying his catch away from the others. He apparently even thought we were going to steal his dinner cause he ran from the truck and hid under a bush. Our guide succeeded in running him out of the bush and he sat out in the open and ate his supper for us. It was a little sad cause it was a baby, but it was crazy watching this! A lion’s tongue is like a cat’s on steroids, our house cats’ tongues are quite scratchy when they lick us, but if
you let a lion lick on your arm, in about 10 minutes he’d be down to bone. So we watched as this guy licked and played with his food. After a while, once one of the poor little guy’s back leg was gone, I’d had about enough, but Bill took over taking pictures at that point. He can also show you a few extra pictures if you’d like, cause I deleted all of mine that freaked me out a little too much, especially those where the little warthog just looked like a doll. Anyways, we all sat there, paparazzi taking our pictures, and the other trucks started moving on. The last truck, besides us, was about to pull off, when another little warthog came trotting, unknowingly, over the top of the hill…oh boy. I can’t tell you how crazy this all was, watching from 50 yards away! But as soon as the other male lion caught sight/smell of the little thing it was over. But he sure gave it a go. The young male took off first, followed by the other two females and they chased the poor thing around a bush, back up the hill, around the bush again,
and then finally caught him. But you’ll see that one of the females was the actual winner so she, much like the first young male, took her dinner and left the others. Bill had the camera during all of this and was lucky enough to get quite good pictures. One of the guys sitting next to me had an even bigger lens than mine though, and caught some amazing shots as well. It was nuts!
We drove around for a bit, trying to find where the lioness had taken her warthog, but she had hidden quite well. Instead though, we found the big daddy and one of his older sons. So in total that day, we had seen all 7 of the lions in the pride! And our guide told us that the lion’s eldest son had tried, a couple years ago, to take over as the pride’s macdaddy, but had lost and so this male was sitting pretty at top of the pack for the time being. However, they expect when he gets a bit older, the son will try again and may have better luck next time. We also found out that you can “inbreed” lions for
up to 5 generations and not see any problems. But after that, you start to trade lionesses, mostly, to introduce new blood to the pride. So, at home we have cattle auctions, here the game parks enter to sell or buy animals in game auctions...cows...rhinos...same thing.
But, our fun didn’t end there. After all of that excitement, I turned to the lady next to me and said, “Now, if we see the hippos actually out of the water, I could die right now and be perfectly happy.” Well…we drove to the little pond that we found them in last time and they were hangin out in the water. It was starting to get dark, and apparently they get out at night and head down the hill to graze. So, we pulled around the other side of the water to check them out from a different angle and sure enough, the first one started out of the water. At that point, we pulled back to the other side and caught her, full on, heading into the bushes. Then, we pulled the truck back and parked, just in case the other wanted to follow. I didn’t think that she would actually
get out with us sitting right there but not two minutes later Bill said, “Here comes the other one.” At first I thought, “Yeah right” but sure enough, she got out and walked right in front of the truck as well! I am still playing with my camera so I had to delete quite a few pictures of the hippos cause it was so dark and they came out quite blurry, but I still got a couple good pictures of the girls! They’re huge! And honestly, not very cute!
Then it was back to the eating place and we enjoyed a lovely dinner and conversation with our fellow safarians and guide. Peter has been guiding for seven years now and kind of “fell into it” as he says. But he is “living his dream”. The other two in the group, who had awesome cameras, were from London and were both lawyers. They had started in Cape Town, gone through much of the winelands, done a few other things on the way, and were flying back to Cape Town, from PE, Saturday. There was also an older couple, from England, who had done much the same thing. I am excited
Peakin thru
I'm still playing with the lighting and stuff but some of these came out ok. to get to the winelands on the way back from Cape Town, it all sounded wonderful!
So, thanks to a National Guard backpack, Bill and I enjoyed the best game drive yet! We were taken back in to PE that evening and it was back to school on Friday. Bill and one of my roommates came for our “Lap for a Life” run on Friday afternoon and we ran/walked a total of about 5.25 miles to raise money for a wheelchair for a disadvantaged child. Each lap that you did raised money from your sponsors. Between the Valentine’s dance and this fundraiser, they’ve raised enough to buy the chair. It’s actually really nice to see kids involved with their schools and communities and just how much they can accomplish for others.
We hit up the little Craft Market, in the boardwalk, for souvenirs that night and that was about it. We were going to go out with my roommates for one last beer and both ended up falling asleep, watching rugby, at the B&B...we're such losers! We got up and packed everything on Saturday morning and had to say goodbye early that afternoon. It was really nice to
have him here and I wish he could have stayed longer. But we hope that you guys enjoy all of the pictures, hope I didn’t gross anybody out too much!
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anonymous
non-member comment
Jess great pics. Bill obviously brought you luck. What a great safari. Interesting story.