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Published: June 17th 2017
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02 Mother and Calf
A white rhino mother and calf running away from us. Geo: -24.7867, 26.2903
Today I turned 33. We were on leave but spending these few days in the staff village at work. My day started with Paul bringing me an Amarula coffee as I woke up and then he made us delicious pancakes for breakfast. The rest of the day was relaxing about the house on the couch watching TV.
In the afternoon Paul took me on a game drive. We saw animals as soon as we drove out of the staff village gate. There were zebras and a variety of water birds in the wetlands. Around the bend there was a female elephant. She was wet and had obviously been swimming in the lodge's waterhole. She quickly walked towards us, we reversed until she walked off the road.
Near the guest entrance to Jaci's Safari Lodge there was a herd of impalas, relaxing in the shade. Nearby there was a lonely male kudu that looked at us as we stopped and then walked off into the bush. We turned off onto a two track. Along here there was a male elephant happily eating leaves from a tree. We stopped and he looked at us and then walked away.
Soon after, we came
03 Bird
A Red Billed Oxpecker sitting on a kudu. across a female white rhino and her very young calf. Once they realised we were there, they ran off. Nearby there was another lonely male kudu which had very long horns. On his back there were Red Billed Oxpeckers eating the ticks from its fur. We took a detour and turned off towards the Bat Caves.
We could hear quite a commotion. There was a huge Rock Fig Tree here and in the tree there was a large troop of baboons. The baboons were jumping about from branch to branch, eating the fruit. We watched and listened to them for about ten minutes.
About five minutes later we saw another female white rhino and her calf. This calf was about 3 years old. The mother's horn was really long and pointy. They stopped when they saw us, looked at us, turned around and ran off with their little tails curled up. We slowly drove behind the rhinos as they ran away along the road. They ran off the road and into the bush. We looked back to the road and there was a male rhino sitting in a large mud puddle on the road. When he noticed us, he jumped
04 Another Pair
Another pair of white rhinos. up and also ran into the bush. I was a bit disappointed that at all three of today's rhino sightings, they ran away and we were not able to observe them.
We drove past zebras, kudus and impalas on the way to the Ambush Alley Lookout. We got out of the car and enjoyed the view. Back on the road we stopped at the waterhole. There were a pair of zebra drinking and a small breeding herd of elephants slowly making their way towards the waterhole.
We drove past that waterhole as the zebra had already left and the elephants had not yet arrived. We drove towards the herd that were heading to the waterhole when we saw a young bull elephant. We drove towards him. He was very chilled and only a few metres from my side of the car. The elephant continued eating grass. He pulled the grass out of the ground, roots and all, and then banged the grass on the ground to shake the dirt off the roots. He did keep his eye on us and he continued eating grass right beside the car. We stayed with him for about 10 minutes and this was one
05 Off they go!
This pair also ran away from us. of my closest elephant sightings.
It was time to start going back, the small breeding herd had already been to the waterhole. There was not much seen at all, until we reached the airstrip. It was very busy here- giraffes, zebras, impalas and a few jackals running around. We were now nearly back at the lodge, our last chance of seeing animals would be at the wetlands/waterhole, but there were no animals here.
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