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Published: June 30th 2009
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amazingly we managed to get onto a trip to kruger for the next morning for 2 nights and 3 days! amazing. so we got picked up at 5.30am and headed to the national park to do one of my all time top things to do before i die.. safari in africa!
i was unbelievably excited! it took all day to drive up there, we stopped at a couple of places on the way.. a view point over the 4th (i think) largest canyon in the world.. very impressive. and some potholes, less impressive. to be honest would rather have gone straight there and got a night drive in but it doesnt work like that so we couldnt.
the site that we stayed in on the first night was amazing. it was like a resort, outside the park, and although we had permanent tents to sleep in the facilities and surroundings were very lovely. it was a 4* place so sported a pool and a nice new bar and the food was an extensive buffet. hurrah!
up at 5 again the next morning for a day of game park drives!
now, the BIG 5 is talked about the
world over and frankly i didnt really know what they were. they werent what i thought they were either... they're not the biggest animals in the parks or the rarest or the ones that most people want to see.hmm. i was stumped. if i had my big 5 they would be the lions, rhinos, giraffes, hippos and the elephants. only 3 of these are in the big 5. actually the mammals that constitute this are the animals that have the least known predators of all.. and they are.. lions, rhinos, elephants, leopards and the african buffalo (a big bloody cow of all things!).
and we saw all 5 of them within the first 3 hours. and it was amazing and awe inspiring and humbling. and they were wild!
kruger is one of the largest national parks in the world, spanning some 20,000sq km, 360km in length and 65km in width. it has 1,982 species of plants, 517 species of birds and 147 species of mammals, more than any other african game reserve! it has approximately 11,000 elephants. now hows that for stats!
our guide can only be descriped as a human version of rafiki the monkey from
the lion king, he kept making monkey noises and rolling his eyes and was completely insane. but knew his stuff. the first thing he introduced us to were the impalas, antelopes that are widespread throughout the park. he pointed out that if you llook at where their tails are you'll see a black mark, in the shape of an M, on their rear... this is because they are the 'fastfood' of the plains.. they are the 'macdonalds' to all the carnivors, a quick easy meal.
and it carried on from there. we saw:
impala, zebras, kudus, warthogs (the pumpas were so much fun, running off indignantly with their tails high in the air, in their little families.. so funny), baboons (the naughty boys), white rhinos, elephants (they crossed the road in front of us!), the highly elusive leopard (for 3 seconds), crocodiles, hippos, springbock, steinbock, wilderbeast (the stupid ones, they tease the lions! we even saw it! eejiots!), giraffes (eating acacia trees), we even saw a tortoise!, so many different birds from vultures to the hornbills (zaazu in the lion king), lions (from really far away with binoculars), pigmy meerkats, and probably other animals that ive forgotten.
it
was incredible. on the night drive as the sunset in the evening we spotted bushbabies and more antelopes and a family of elephants with a little baby dumbo! everything in the park is so still and serene (so, we didnt see any hunting going on) and so beautiful.
to be honest i dont really know what else i can say about the safari. i could go one for thousands of words about the majestic giraffes or the humongous power of the almighty white rhinos, the snorting gurgles of the hippos or even the slowly meandering ways of the tortoise, but it would take me a whole book to do it and even then i would never fully be able to capture the intense feeling of really being there, at one, with the some of the most incredible wild animals in the world only meters away from you, living free as nature intended. like diving, you step into another dimension within our planet, one to be respected, revered and appreciated and i did all of that, and loved every second!
over and out, til next time.
ps.. at the time of writing this you should be aware that
i am about 2 months behind on this blog.. time keeps flying and taking me with it! it must mean im having fun hey! but i will endeavour to carry on writing and will eventually get up to date with it all... some time in the not too distant future!
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bex
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WOW!
Hi hun, Sounds amazing!!! So can't wait to do a safari - it sounds like its everyting you would want it to be!