Sitting in the hot tub watching zebras!

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We are living it up in a 5 star delux guest retreat! Arguably we have the smallest (and cheapest!) room. It has its own little eco reserve with two Burchel zebras and some springbok. It also has a hot tub which over looks the eco reserve so we got to sit in it and watch the wildlife, how cool is that? The hotel gardens are lovely. There are several plants that attract the sunbirds so I spent ages watching them flit about. I tried to take a photo but it is no easy task!

All of this is in Swellendam which we are visiting so we can go Bontebok national park. Bonteboks are a type of antelope which have been heavily hunted in the past and the world population dropped to 17! The park was set up to protect them.

Bonteboks do not do camouflage well and have a bright white head and bottom and are easy to spot from a long distance. I am sure that is why the were hunted to near extinction. They may as well have had a big bullseye painted on their bottom!

I am pleased to say that we saw quite a few in the park. I did have a brief panic when we got to the park as we saw a couple really close to the gate but I was too busy trying to hold 2 sandwiches and a slice of cake to be able to get to the camera and binoculars! Luckily we saw plenty more later on.

We also spotted what we think were grey rhebok/reebok (another type of antelope). They were moving pretty fast and blend into the background very well. Random fact: they give their name to the sports brand Reebok.

We also saw some Cape mountain zebras. They were the first zebras we had seen this trip and are different to the ones we saw in Namibia. For those of you who know their zebras the Cape Mountain Zebras have stripes all the way down their legs to the hooves and don't have any shadow stripes between their main stripes. They are fairly rare and like the bontebok were hunted to near extinction.

As there were no dangerous animals in the park we were able to go on a walk. On the trail we found a really cute small tortoise as well as lots of less cute grasshoppers and crickets.

On the way to Swellendam we passed Ronnie's Sex Shop which is a bizarre tourist attraction. The story goes that Ronnie was going to set up a shop and painted Ronnie's Shop on the wall. His friends then added the sex in as a joke! It has worked out well for him as it is now a popular pub on route 62. We stopped to take the obligatory photo!

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Photos

Rothman Manor
Our night of 5 star luxury.