Pilanesberg Game Reserve

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Arrived at Pilanesberg yesterday after an easy 3 hour trip and set up camp. We then took a game drive through the reserve and had a good few sightings.

We saw elephant, some rhino, one had a small calf and an enormous horn and lots of zebra, giraffe and buck. There seemed to be quite a few young around.

But the best of all was as we were making our way back to camp. We came across a black backed jackel den in a storm drain under the road. The mother jackal wasn’t there but three cute pups were running in and out of the drain and playing around outside the den. It’s the first time I’ve seen jackal young and we watched them for quite a time.

Then it was back to camp, a swim and supper cooked on the fire. No rain, just a very hot and sunny day.

Today we were going on an early morning game drive. The gates open at 5.30 so we set our alarms for 4.30 to get up in time to be first at the gate, although even then we were only number three in the queue.

We had a fairly uneventful drive seeing elephant very close to the road, rhino again and the smaller and more common animals. Again on our way back we saw a few cars in one spot and that generally means that something more exotic than zebra has been spotted.

We drew up alongside and saw what looked to be a rhino but it didn’t seem to be moving. Then we saw a lovely male lion walking across in front of us and start to feed on the rhino carcass. We watched for a while and then made our way back to camp for a sleep and a huge fried breakfast on the skottle - our first since being in SA this year.

We’ll go and visit the rhino carcass later today as it will be there for quite a while and will probably attract some hyena and vultures as well.

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Photos

Campsite
Setting up our tents