Day 14 + 15: Hlane N.P. (Swaziland) – Bushwalk, Village Tour & Game Drive

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It was time to go to Swaziland. Here, by and local village excursion, we got introduced by the traditional (tribal) life. Much people in Swaziland lived for decades due the tribal life and in some tribes, they still do. However, Hlane N.P. is the old hunting grounds of the king, so it’s a good place to make some game drives, or a bushwalk in the “Rhino area”. With luck you can spot here all of the big 5. It is not that good organised as in South-Africa. It’s here more “Hakuna Matata”, “just no worry”. “Time will pass; we’re doing it all relax”, or summarized everything will occur here at their local tempo. For us Dutchies, loving the stress and the speed, that was sometimes a little bit hard; we are used that 10 ‘o clock is at 10, and not 10:15, for example. But from the other side, I have a good impression about the people and the culture in Swaziland. O, and the big question? Did I spot the leopard to complete all the animals of the big 5? Was I able to shot some good pictures of Lions? And did I finally saw a giraffe?



We left Hluhulwe a little bit later than our usual travel days. We left around 8, we made a small stop at a tank station, including a supermarket and we were on the road again at 9. We were heading for the border crossing Golela, where we are able to cross the border with the small country of Swaziland. Swaziland is laying in the North-East of South Africa and is crossing with Mozambique as well. But, before we were able to reach the border, we had to wait for a train. The train rails is just before the border; and we were not able to pass before the train arrived. And the train arrived, but very slowly and it was also quite long. That means, we were waiting for almost 20 minutes, before we finally could finish the last journey in South-Africa today.



When I received two more stamps in my passport again, it was time to go to Hlane, in Swaziland. Swaziland was from origin a British colony, but became independent in 1968. Swaziland has 6 National Parks, where Hlane N.P. is one of them. Hlane N.P. is also known as the old hunting grounds of the king. Speaking about the king, Swaziland has a very special culture about the King. Currently, Mswati III is King of Swaziland. When his fater Sobhuza II died, one of the many wives where choice on character. Only a son of a respectful, good wife with a good character is choice to become the king. Mostly, it are the sons of the latest wives, however, the older sons are also able to get a change to reign. When Sobhuza II died, Msawatsi III was choose. He is the 67 son of Sobhuza II and his mother Ntombi Thwaala. Because, it is not possible to reign when you are under the 18 and Mswatsi III was in that time 14 years old, the mother of the chosen King is able to Reign as Queen Mother. A Queen Mother is a very hard position and a period, because there are always ambition uncles and brothers that want to have the reign itself. In the end Mswatsi III became the King, and is able to merry a lot of woman. Currently, he has 15 wives and 23 children. It is expected that the King marry to each virgin young woman from every clan, to contain the good (business) relations. The King is originally from the Dlamini clan. When a new young woman is selected, her family has a high position in the current clan. When these young woman are selected, they first have to be engaged to the King. They are not able to merry to king, before they give birth to a child from the King. You see it often that man in Swaziland are able to marry with more woman; but woman’s are not allowed to marry with more than one man. I learned about the traditional (tribe) life more during our local town excursion, later in my blogpost.



We arrived at the campsite. It was a very simple campsite, without no energy, for example. Also, in this area there is lack at good drinking water, so it was advised to keep a very low water consumption. We took our lunch and set up our tents. It was not possible to do here a upgrade. It was possible to do some excursions already. A guide was booked for the Bushwalk. But then, some clouds were coming and some hard rain was streaming out. No, not again?!? We were afraid we got in the same situation as in Drakensbergen (read my blogpost from Drakensbergen when you missed it), but after 20 minutes the rain was gone and we were able to go on the Bushwalk. And it kept dry!



The Bushwalk is in fact a walk in the bush, or a game hiking. In fact, you go by feet trying to find animals. But mostly, you won’t see that much animals if you go by a game drive. But, with a game walk, or a bush walk, you are able to see some other things you are never see with the car. For example, did you ever stand on a rhino toilet? Or seeing a nest with young born red spiders? You are able to see and do that on a bush walk. But, you do need at least one ranger. The ranger is armed and is in position to shot an animal to defend us when it’s needed. Our ranger today was Johannes. Johannes is a ranger and a tour guide. He works in the park, and supports the excursions that tourists can do. He is a good guide, he knew a lot of information about the animals and the park. But there was a little bit a problem. He is really “hakuna matata”, and very relax. Everything goes on local speed, and especially at lazy local speed. It is his way of doing, but for us he was quite slow. Slow in his actions, but also slow in his speak. That made it sometimes very hard to understand him and to follow his story. We left the our camping and we went into the park. The park has some sections, where the some animals are only aloud to live in that section. For example, in the lion sections, the lions are living and in the rhino sections, the rhino’s were living. During the bushwalk you are not able to walk in the lion section, due safety. But, we are allowed to walk in the rhino section. If you are not encounter a rhino from close, he probably will not attack. In this tour, you are able to see some antelopes, like nyala’s and impala’s. We did not saw some bigger animals, like elephants or rhino’s. And, also not a giraffe! But this tour is really a great tour. The tour will take around 2 hours. You encounter some things you never will see and you will get information about the animals you otherwise never will got. At first, we encountered Dung beetle. This small beetles are feeding on feces, or in normal language, at poop. For a small animal, they are quite strong. They are able to move object (mostly balls of poops) that are way more heavier then itself and in groups they are able to move the objects which is maximum 250 times heavier than one animal. You see them rolling with the balls of poop. Sometimes they climb on it and roll it, or they roll it from the ground. We saw the group of Dung beetles with antelope poop. They were quite busy with it. We saw they were carrying and rolling the balls of the poop. However, in this case, the balls of poop were smaller than the beetles themself. But, they do not have any problems with balls of poop bigger than themselves. In fact, these animals are quite important in the nature. For us, they do a “dirty job”, but they are very important animals. With their work, they take care about the nutrition of the ground and the structure of the soil. When too much poop is laying at the ground, it may spread plagues and diseases. The beetles are recycling the poop, so the changes that plagues are spreading is limited. In some cultures the agriculture sector makes use of these animals to keep their land fit. It was nice to see this little, important animals in action: just the way they always do: rolling and carrying poop. It took us not long founding out the poop that we just saw with the beetles, was just fresh. We encountered some paws of antelopes. The rain that felt, made the hard sand a little bit loser, and in some place there was mud. Then, you are more able to spot those paw prints more easier. We walked at the small paths, before we saw a place with a lot of poop. The rhino “toilet”. A rhino herd is coming to this place when they have to do their pooping. In fact, this place is only for the Alfa male, but the females rhino’s are also able to make use of it. The other males, are not able to use this toilet. When they are doing, they do it out of provocation, and the Alfa male will see this also as provocation, and a change that this provocation will come to a fight is big enough. Rhino and Elephant poop do almost look the same, however there are some differences; the rhino poop is a little more “smoother”. During our tour, we got information about a lot of animal behaviour, two examples of them contain threes. The first one, is that elephants are able to push down an entry tree. The reason why elephants push down a tree, is not only just for fun, but mostly that he is be able to join the roots. During a long period of dryness and almost no nutrients, the roots contains a lot of carbohydrates. When successfully pulling a tree of the ground, the elephant is feeding itself from the soft, young roots and is able to gain a higher carbohydrate level. And the elephant is leaving some food for other animals as well. The second example is for the rhino. Rhino’s can use a high tree trunk for the care of their biggest horn. They are shuffling their horn against the tree trunk, leading that the trunk become paned and smooth. Therefore the horn will also be paned and smooth. We also found a bone of a wild animal, probably it was an antelope. The beetles were not the only small animals we saw. We also saw a young nest of red spiders. During the tour, we also got information about the plants, trees and especially the medicine gift they should have. We also stopped by the Marula Tree, famous of Amarula. If you are in South-Africa, you can taste Amarula; it’s a liqueur and it contains 17% of alcohol. It taste a little bit sweet, just with a note of Caramel. It is a little bit similar than the liqueur Baileys. If you like Baileys, you definitely like Amarula. I agree Amarula was quite nice, but I am not into liqueurs, I prefer to have light alcohol drinks like wine and beer. The Amarula fruit is poisoned for humans if we eat it directly, but after fermentation, we are able to drink it. Amarula is quite popular by humans as the liqueur, but Elephants are fans of Amarula as well, but then of the Fruit. That is why the Elephant is standing on the bottle of Amarula and it’s the famous Mascot. With the famous Marula tree, we ended our bush walk. I really liked it; you see a park totally otherwise than a game drive. We did not encounter the real big animals, but we saw antelopes from quite close, however they fly directly because they were afraid for us. So, do not expect that you come close by big animals, but expect to learn about trees, small plants, small insects, animal behaviour by the traces they left behind.



In the evening, Manda prepared a African meal. We got a porridge mix, with a piece of bacon, served with a sweet red sauce. As vegetables, he served a cabbage salad with peanut sauce. For the next day, there were several options to go to excursions. One excursion, will be executed quite early. A sunrise game drive and it would start around 5. Only two members of our group signed up, but I choose to not do that. I already wanted to do 2 excursions, and I was afraid it would be too much. Again, it was possible to visit a local town; but please do not ask me again how this town is called. In the afternoon, we shall have a new game drive. There are leopards in the park, so are we able to see one? And a giraffe? That would be awesome! The next day, the sunrise tour started at 5 and they came back with some good pictures of active lions. But, in the night, we also could hear the lions roar. That close? The lions were close by, however; not that close. They cannot come at the camping, but they also did not stand by the gates. They were some 5 km away in the distance. You can hear their roars especially when you are far away. Close to them, you would not hear the roar, but how wider in the distance, how likely you are able to hear their roars. That means, that other lions and other animals known from a distance, that the herd of lions which are roaring, are claiming their territory. Not only lions, but leopards have the same technique. In the Kruger Park (Next blogpost) we were able to hear the roars of the leopards. However, I did not saw the animals active in the early of the morning, I did hear them being active: however from a distance.



The next morning, breakfast was served a little bit later; we waited until the two came back from the sunrise tour. At 8.30 we had our first introduction before the tour. Well, the introduction was just the fact that we as woman had to wear a traditional skirt. It was required to enter the small village. If you did not wear this skirt, you were not allowed to join the tour and to enter the village. For me it is no problem, but there were some girls in the group that did not like the idea. Honestly, I like this idea; all the woman’s and girls are wearing skirts, so why we as tourists not? And, with wearing a skirt you show them respect. So, for me it was not a problem. The skirts are not that colourful, but a little bit sober. You were able to wear the skirts over your pants. And, during the tour it was not the first time we woman-tourists should have a little bit a respect to their culture. The ranger of yesterday, Johannes was again our guide and helped the ladies to wear the skirt. The little town was 30 km from Hlane N.P. I do not sure if it actually still is an active town, at least it looked more than a museum. Compared to the Lesotho tour, the Lesotho tour was active; you walked by the local life, you had more contact with the real locals. Here, it looked more like a museum and they showed us the old tribal live. I do not know if there are still people living this way, but it was a nice way to look in that traditions; but it was not so superior as the Lesotho tour. As first, we were welcomed by the chief. Here, we got a small introduction, but at local style. The man should sit right, the woman left. In their culture, the man is the most important and has more authority. That means, that the man should sit always higher than a woman. So, that means, that the woman’s have to sit on the ground, and the man on a bank, mostly made out of wood. Then, we went further to the man’s pub, actually a place in the open, just rounded by some wooden walls without any proper tables. The woman’s are not allowed to come here, only man and the young boys. The boys will learn here how to become a man, how to hunt, the man will tell story’s. The woman’s are only allowed to bring food. For me, this culture is almost identical as lions: the woman are doing all the work, the man’s are relaxing and are in the right to eat first. And even also the fact that man are able to marry more woman; and vice versa is not allowed. The woman will work a lot, they do the complete housekeeping and cooking. However, only the man’s are hunting, and they regularly do that. Hunting is not a task for woman.

The tour was also interactive. Ton and Manda were asked to join a small demonstration about hunting techniques, with some traditional weapons. Also, the pub is a place where the traditional marriage traditions finds place. Here, the woman will be married, but first she has to precipitate a ritual. In the ritual, she has to stand the complete night, with a long branch in the “pub”. Most woman are crying, because they have to leave their family, to start living by the family of their husbands. From here, we went in the town and we saw how the local people were sleeping. For guest, they had a special pillow made of wood. The guest can lay under animal skins. The woman’s showed us how to make flour and we could try it ourselves. We also could sing and dance with the woman’s. They make a special sound with their tongue, a high, long sound that sounds like “lilili”. If a woman is singing like that, it is a sign that she is happy. Also, there was a small store where you were able to buy some souvenirs if you liked. In the end of the tour, some school children gave us an demonstration with dance and sang.



After lunch, we had a small rain fall. In the afternoon, it was time for a game drive. This time, Johannes and two another ranger were sitting behind the wheel. I choice to go in the jeep by Johannes. In total there were 3 game jeeps that would go in the park. From here, we drove into the rhino section where we saw some rhino’s. Also, we saw buffalo’s and a lot of elephants. The elephants were elegant, but did not come very close. Also the rhino’s and the buffalo’s keep some distance. And in the distance, we saw Pumba! But, where was Timon? We did not saw Timon, but Pumba was there. Everyone knows Pumba, it is the warthog of the Lion King! Warthogs look quite dangerous, but they are not. When a jeep is approaching, they like to hide in the vegetation. It is quite hard to make a good picture of them, because today we only sawing them with their butt towards us. However, they are not that big as expected. Their average shoulder high is 80 cm. Because they are grazing at the grounds, they keep their head low. Otherwise they reach a height of 90 cm to 150 cm. They do not weight that much; a female around 40 to 80 kg, and a male from 60 to a maximum of 150 kg. They do look heavier than they are. They are a common prey of lions, leopards, wild dogs, hyena’s, crocodiles and in some cases also cheetah’s. They almost go not in defence, however you would expect that with their two small tusks and their almost aggressive head, but they flee and run into the vegetation. However, they have their tusks for fighting with each other during the mating period. If you look carefully, you actually can see 4 tusks! They have two large tusks and there under there are two tiny ones. They are also social animals. A warthog live in small groups, especially the cubs with their mothers. You might spot them when they have young animals, but today, we were not able to see that. We saw that in the Kruger park, (see my next blogpost). That is really cute! A female animal gives birth to around 2 to 8 cubs, but mostly 2 to 4 is common. The pregnancy time is around 5 to 6 months. They do live in much parts of Africa. You do not see them in the north of Africa (Saharan Africa), in the Middle-west Africa and in South-West Africa. I really like the warthogs, but I still was spotting everywhere to see if I could find a giraffe. We still did not saw any giraffe, and this is our second game drive and we already had a bush walk. I thought the giraffes were quite easy to spot, especially with their long necks. That is true, especially in drier area’s for example on the Savannah of Kenia and Tanzania. Here, they are hiding their selves between three’s and vegetation. And then, finally, we saw a giraffe! Finally, there she was! A giraffe! The first one we saw and finally my favourite safari animal that we saw. She was lurking in the distance and we saw also a small young cub. So I really hoped we could come close to make some pictures of her and the young animal. But, they took some distance and the young cub was hiding, but luckily I have a great shot of her, also with his mother. I tried to shot her on the camera as well, but she was difficult to catch. Every time I tried to shot her (with my camera), she hiding her head behind a tree. I hope we were able to coming way more close. The giraffe is a hoofed animal, and just like buffalo’s they have a high effective digestion. They spend the complete day, walking around and try to eat the freshest leaves on top of the trees. A female giraffe can reach from 3,5 to almost 5 meters, where an full-grown male can reach from 4 meters to almost 5,3 meters but in externally cases they can grown up to 5,5 meters. A neck from a giraffe is around 1,5 to 2 meters long, just like an average human. A female animal weights 400 to 600 kg, but the male animal weight is at least 500 kg, and they can weigh up to 800 kg. Giraffes do have a great sight, probably the bests from the savannah, due the fact their eyes are besides on their head. Also, they are masters in the distinction of colours. They do have long lashes to protect themselves from the thorns of the threes. That is also the reason why they have a rough tongue. Their tongue is very long, the average is 45 cm, so they are able to curl the tongue around a leaf and then pull the leave of the three. Mostly they eat leaves, knops and fruits from the Acacia three, which has long thorns, but they also like to eat leaves and fruits from the Mimosa, Commiphora and Terminalia three. In some cases, they eat leaves from other trees and plants. The skin of the giraffe turns darker when the animals is getting older. Males have mostly a darker colour than the females, probably due the level changes in testosterone. During mating time the males can fight for the female’s and you can see them neck wrestle. The pregnancy of a giraffe is around 14 to 15 months. Almost the half of the cubs that are born will fall death as pray to hyena’s and lions. I liked to see finally a giraffe. I hoped that we were able to come closer by them. However that changed; Johannes received a call-up where the lions were. They were laying almost perfect, at the side of the road, so it was a great opportunity to saw them from close. Johannes decided to drove so fast as he could to go to them, and we turned away from the giraffe without even coming close and without great pictures. Too bad, this were the only giraffes we saw that day. We drove to the park, crossing some nyala’s (male and female) and impala’s (male and female). From a distance, we saw with the binocular one male lion walking, but when we arrived the male was laying in the grass and sleeping again. The lions were relaxing, and there was a cub of around 11 months by them. One female lion was keeping us in sight and guarding the others. We could come close to make some good pictures of the lions. Trying to stand in your car was not a good option, the female lion that was watching us. Animals do not see the humans inside the car when they are sitting. They only see the car as one “block”. If you go to stand, you break that imagination and “the block”, and they do recognise you as a human or animal. Which means that an animal can see you know as a human, an “animal threat” and attack when it feels itself threaded by your presence. Lions, and even other animals, also can attack cars; the lions do that mostly when they just caught a prey. They see the car as threat; a threat that can steal their prey, and will attack the car. The lions put quite a lot of afford in hunting which is a difficult task for them and they will fight for death to defend their cached pray. They will, without doubt attack a car. Not due the fact that there are humans inside, but because they see the car, the “block” as threat itself. However, the lions did not had a prey and they were sitting or laying quite relax. I made some good shots of the lions, but I do not have great picture of the young cub. However, the cub is not small but almost full grown. I was able to shot a great picture of the male lion and a female. We drove away though the park. From here, we had almost an encounter with an elephant. The situation was like this: a herd of elephants wanted to cross the road, and one elephant came very close in front of your jeep. Johannes did not trust it and drove the jeep backwards. But, he did not saw an elephant that was also crossing the road behind us. “Stop stop”, we called and the elephant became scared as well. Of course, a jeep was heading with some speed right at her! She was flapping with his ears, trumpeting. Johannes stopped and stay “be quite”. The elephant saw that we stopped and stood still. She became quite as well and calm. But she still approached the jeep. She was a little bit curious, but in the mean time our hearts where beating like hell. An angry elephant can easily throw over an jeep with people inside. She looked for some seconds and decide to cross the road and starting to doing normal business again; eating. During this tour, we did not only saw regularly safari animals, like rhino’s, elephants, zebras, lions. But we saw also two animals that do live in Africa but are harder to spot. I will discuss them right now. The first one is a vulture (raptors). It is quite hard to spot them, especially they are threatened of extension. We saw one sitting on the ground. They mostly flying around, to find a death animal. They are scavengers, probably the best known scavengers on earth. They prey consist out of death animals, that already were eaten by other animals, for example lions, leopards or hyena’s. The corpse that is left, still contains a little bit meat. The vulture is able to pick this meat of the bones with his large, pointy (curled) beak. They mostly do not have feathers in their neck, so those would not be dirty when they have to stop their head in to the corpses. Most meat is already eaten by other animals, but due their long necks and small head and their beak, they are able to eat the meat in between the bones where other animals cannot reach it. So, yes, they stick their head in a corpse without any problems. They really look quite frighten, due the lack of feathers in their neck, their beak, their height and their span. They mostly are living in packs and flying over the area to find a corpse of an animal. When the coast is clear they attend the prey. Sometimes, they do have fights with hyena’s or other scavengers. Mostly, those other scavengers flee away, because the vultures will bite and scare them off when they span their wings. Another animal that we saw that is not common to spot is a python, a snake. Luckily to Johannes, we saw him. Johannes stopped by a dead three and said. “Look, Python in that death tree”. So, we were watching. “That is just a death branch”, we came to the conclusion. “Python, there! He is laying on top of the highest left branch”. So, we start to look more careful and I took my binocular. “Just above the secretion between two branches were one branch is vertical, you can see a part of his tail, which is curled around that branch”. And yes, then I saw him. “Aah I see him!”. I first saw his tail and then I saw him. That is really a great piece of camouflage! I never would discover him by myself. He really looks exactly like the branch and the dead tree! It is so awesome to see one. When I was younger we had an excursion with the biology class to a specially shelter where they held reptiles and snakes. They also had a python, a tiger python, almost so big as this one. You could lay that one in the neck and I did, of course with supervising. We hold him and when he was moving, you could feel that his muscles were moving and how strong he is. He weights quite a lot, due the muscles. So we, small kids, need some supervising with holding one. And that one was “just” 3 meters, and you already could feel his amazing strength. O boy, if a python is really using all his strength, for example to struggle a prey, that is so much strength and power, I am doubting if any animal does have this great strength on earth. I prefer not to be his prey. Of course, we knew that python’s where living in South-Africa, or Swaziland in this case, but seeing one I never would expected. I would expect it more on the game walk, because than you move slowly though the area and have more eyes for “small things”. But, now, he was laying in the dead three. Doing nothing. Just laying. Or sleeping? Or waiting for a prey to come and struggling him? I had to google this snake, before telling you this is a Python natalensis (thank you, Wikipedia). He can grow up to 4 meters, but the minimal adult size is around 2,8 meters. He can weight more than 50 kg. Not much for a long animal, but snakes are pretty flexible. The small snakes almost do not weight nothing, but due the many muscles of the Python, this one does weight quite a lot! But, we did not disturb this python. He was laying in his dead three, did not “move a muscle”. He did not move in total. I think, he was so 3 meters from us, so we had enough time to shot him on a picture. In the end, we drove away. When we arrived at the camp, the other jeeps were standing there. But, there was a surprise. A huge elephant bull was standing close by the gate. Eelco was able to open the gate from the camping side and close the gate as well when we drove though the gate. He closed but the bull became a little bit angry, so Eelco ran away from the gate so fast as he could. But the bull became than calm and walked away. This gate probably would not hold long a very angry, huge bull elephant, so luckily he decided to left us alone and go back in the park.



We had diner. Manda fried potatoes wedges and served them with mayonnaise. As vegetable he made a mix of broccoli, cauliflower and carrots. He had a chicken leg with sauce. In the evening, at campfire, there were some local dancers that give a show from us. It was dark, but the campfire gave us enough light to see the dancers. Sadly, my camera could not picture them perfect. But, as you can see their clothing is really beautiful. The man were stripped naked from above, and underneath they wore a skirt from animal skin. They had some bands on their arms and legs of white skin. Also, the white skin was merged in the skirt with some brown skin. The woman’s wear also skin from above. They had large drums, where they hit on each other. They danced also a lot with their feed. When the drum was hitting, they hitting on the ground. The sand was flying in the air, sometimes it hit us. In the end, we could join them with the dance. But we Dutchies are not so great dancers, just like them. I really enjoyed the dancing. It really was a tradition dance, which I almost cannot explain. It really was beautiful, also with the drums. It really was a perfect combination. When they left, we drank a beer at the camp fire.



In the end, I finally saw a giraffe. Actually two. But the leopard? There are leopards in this park. But, we did not saw them. This left us just one change so see them, or at least one of them: The Kruger Park. In my next blogpost you can read if I finally saw one.

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Photos

Bush Game Walk
Antelope poop

Bush Game Walk
Impala. As you see, we are quite close :)

Bush Game Walk
Johannes is standing brave in the "Rhino Toilet". I do not hope the Alfa Rhino male discovers another (human) male is entering his Toilet!

Bush Game Walk
Johannes found a bone of an animal.

Bush Game Walk
Even for Bird spotters you can find (small) beautiful birds during the Game Walk.

Bush Game Walk
Rhino's are using trunks of tree's to shuffling their horns, so they become smooth again.

Bush Game Walk
A nestle of small, red spiders

Sunset
I photographed this with normal settings. I do not know how I achieved this picture, only than good luck.

Local Village Tour
A small house.

Local Village Tour
The Wedding Ceremony. A girl that goes wedding, has to stand a complete night in the "pub".

Local Village Tour
Ton is trying to hunt, but it seems like he cached Manda.

Local Village Tour
The guest are sleeping like this.

Local Village Tour
The local people are able to perform a small agriculture.

Local Village Tour
Me making some flour - or at least trying to do so -

Game Drive - Hlane N.P.
White Rhino's

Game Drive - Hlane N.P.
Elephant

Game Drive - Hlane N.P.
This is Pumba, the Warthog. But, where is Timon?

Game Drive - Hlane N.P.
Buffelo

Game Drive - Hlane N.P.
A Vulture, is an animal which you probably do not encounter that easy.

Game Drive - Hlane N.P.
Left: the baby giraffe. Right: the mother giraffe, hiding her head behind a tree.

Game Drive - Hlane N.P.
The Baby giraffe.

Game Drive - Hlane N.P.
The lions laying in the grass

Game Drive - Hlane N.P.
The Male lion

Game Drive - Hlane N.P.
This lion cub is around 11 months, and it really looks almost full grown.

Game Drive - Hlane N.P.
The female lion is guarding the other lions

Game Drive - Hlane N.P.
Do you see the Python natalensis? He is hiding quite clever. Watch secretion between two branches where one branch is going up vertically; a little above, you are able to see his tail curling around the branch, and you probably see him in full length.

Game Drive - Hlane N.P.
Elephant

Game Drive - Hlane N.P.
This was the elephant we almost had an accident with. Here, she would like to cross the road when our ranger decided to drive backwards when an other elephant came to close in front of the truck. The ranger did not saw that this elephant would like to cross over as well.

Game Drive - Hlane N.P.
This is after the scene were she calmed down, came a little bit close due curiosity and decide finding food is more important and left us. In the mean time, our heart was still bonking in our throats.

Local Dance show
Too bad, I could not photograph this very well.