Back in South Africa 20 - 28/12 2010

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Polokwane

We are tired when we arrive at the Polokwane Game Reserve. Actually we planned to stay for only one night, but finally we stayed here a week. It is the perfect place for us. We have a chalet, about the same as the Planet Baobab Lodge in Gweta (Botswana), but three times cheaper and three times better. There is a fully equipped kitchen, so we can make our own meals. There is tv, a bathtub, it is safe and clean and we can go to the gamereserve as often as we like. For free. There is a big town in the neighbourhood with nice shops and with good internetfacilities. And we only have to drive 4 hours to come to the OT Tambo Airport near Johannesburg. And most of all we can take a rest before we go to South America.
We went several times into the park. The advantage is there are no lions here. So can you walk along the trails. You can hear see, hear and even smell the animals. It is a big experience to come so close. There are also leopards and white rhino's, which give it an extra thrill. It is a beautiful savannah landscape with all kinds of acacia's and a raft of grasses. According to the excellent information broschure it is a special and threatened vegetation type, called the Pietersburg Plateau false grassland (Themeda grassland).
The first trail we did was an easy walk of 5 km over the acacia trail. We see e.g. the Umbrella thorn, Silky Thorn, Sweet thorn and the beautiful Sikle tree. An eyecacther is the Mountain aloe. We tried four times to do the 21 km long white rhino trail. The first time we got lost, the second time we found out where we made a mistake, but it was way too hot to walk. The third time we went by car, but it began to rain and we were afraid to get stuck in the mud. It was a good decision, because a big thunderstorm came over us. The fourth time we walked again. We were completely alone. There were no 4wd cars, because it was too muddy. Eveything was ok till we bumped into a river. We could not cross it, because it was swollen by the torrential showers of the day before. Still we made a big walk. During all these hikes we saw a lot of animals on a close distance. Sometimes we stood eye in eye with a wildebeest or an ostrich, or we were in the middle of an herd of elands or zebra's, or we heard the groans of an unknown animal behind the bushes. Special animals we saw were the beautiful Nyala's, Jackal and Waterbuck, but there were also Warthogs, Giraffes and Steenbucks. The White rhino's we never saw and luckily we also did not have a close encounter with a Leopard. On the last hike the trails are muddy because of the storm the night before. We saw the footprints of a White rhino in the mud. He had just crossed the road.
It is Christmas now. We made some fine meals like oxtail with cranberries, filled avocado's and above all some nice white wines.
At Monday we left Polokwane. It was nice to conclude our stay in Africa this way. We drove over the excellent N1 to the OT Tambo Airport to deliver the car. It was a big relief that nothing happened seriously during those 46 days we drove with it from Capetown, via Namibia and Botswana to Johannesburg. In total we drove about 8000 kilometer.
Near the Airport we found a nice hotel: the African Centre. We are up to a new challenge: South America. "Brazil is calling", we read on a big billboard at the Airport.

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Comments

[Patrik]

Fantastic picture of peacock.
Fantastic picture of peacock...

[Andre and Linda]

Hi Patrik, Yes this stupid peacock made a big show for Linda. He was very happy with her.