Day 181 - Rock Art

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There is an incredible amount of things to do at Bushmans Kloof. They don't have any of the Big 5 (Lion, Leopard, Elephant, Buffalo and Rhino) which is what people normally think of for an African safari, but what that means in turn is that people who come here have invariably done safari holidays before and liked them enough to return. The particular draw of the reserve here is their so-called Rock Art, which is what we'd normally call cave paintings. At 7:30am we headed out for a morning drive with Londi our ranger. First stop was breakfast by a remote lake: coffee, croissants and warm muffins. Then we parked up and walked to one of the 130ish Rock Art sites in the reserve, with this particular one called Elephant Hunt. The paintings on the cave wall are quite amazing and are 2000-3000 years old. Apparently they could make paint in 4 colours, black, white, red and yellow, but only the red is hard-wearing enough to still be visible. This means the heads of humans look like hooks because the face has faded away just leaving the red hook-shaped outline.

Once we'd made it through brunch and then high tea we set out again for a game drive. These are always excellent fun, especially as the sun is getting lower in the sky and making the landscapes look their best. We saw plenty of springboks, bondeboks and other antelopes. There were also plenty of birds for Londi and Gren to try and identify whilst the rest of us wonder how they can possibly tell one type from another - the differences can be quite subtle.

Dinner was great, and we might notice a couple less springboks in the reserve tomorrow.

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