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Published: December 11th 2009
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Snack time
at the rhino sanctuary After Livingstone, it was time for us to say a sad goodbye to our group on the truck and our amazing guides, Marietjie and Richard, and join a smaller crew in a minivan. We'd like to thank our old crew and guides for a wonderful experience. It really was a great trip....apart from all the poms, yanks and kiwis! Just joking guys, we love you all, keep in touch.
We joined 8 others for the 7 day trip to Johannesburg. We spent 2 days travelling to Botswana and getting to the Okavanga Delta. Once we got here we went 3 hours into the delta on Mokoros, and camped on one of the islands in the delta. It is the only inland delta in the world. The Mokoros were a bit unsteady to begin with, but once we got used to it we just lay back and let the poler do his work.
Garry unfortunately was still a bit ill so spent most of the first afternoon sleeping in the tent. Meanwhile Carol went on her first safari walk on the island. We walked for an hour and a half and came across some elephants hidden in the bushes. Although
we had seen the elephants on our game drives previously, it is quite different standing out in the open with no where to go if he charges!
That night we got given instructions from our new guide Mike on the best method to avoid various dangerous african animals and also the best method to kill each (if you have to and if you have a really big rifle). For the elephant, imagine a broomstick going between each of his ears, and the small point in the centre of that is where you need to shoot, not hard at all. For the lion, it has to be on the nose, not the forehead. For the hippo, in the middle of his open mouth. For buffalo shoot the shoulder, hope it brings him down and then shoot the neck. Rhino is as simple as waiting for him to get really close to you and when he ducks his head, you fire. To avoid these animals if you are ever cornered by one and don't have the aforementioned rifle, use the following instructions - for elephants get down wind of them, lions stand still, buffalo climb a tree, rhino again wait for
him to get close and when he ducks his head run off to the side and lastly hippos, just stay away from, they kill more people than any other animal in africa. All quite easy really!
We had an early rise the next day for a 6am walk on one of the other islands. We walked for an hour and a half into the island and saw nothing but animal tracks - elephants, lions, antelopes, zebra. It was time to head back and walk an hour and a half back to the mokoros and go back to our own island as it was too hot to walk around after 9am. But luckily enough on our way back we saw some zebra.
We hung around camp until it was time for our next trip on the mokoros. We were all set for a lazy sunset cruise to see the hippos but instead we ended up going to another island and walking for 45 mins to see the hippos in a watering hole.
The next morning it was time to head back to civilization, which involved the 3 hour ride back in, you guessed it, the mokoro. All in
all I think we got pretty lucky in the delta, but we realised it is much harder to find the animals on foot than in the back of a jeep!
After the delta we spent a night in a Rhino sanctuary. Apparently there are 31 white rhinos and only 2 black ones in the sanctuary, and it was just like being on a game drive, the place is quite big and they prove hard to find. We drove for nearly 2 hours around the sanctuary and finally at the end when we thought it was all over, we saw some white rhinos by the side of the road, we think a male, female and baby. We also learnt that the terms black and white rhino come from a miscommunication - white rhino should be wide rhino, for wide lipped, and the black is a hook nosed rhino. After seeing the white rhinos it was time to set up camp. We were a little sad at not having seen a black rhino but we were in for a surprise later that night. We had eaten dinner and were sitting around the camp fire, just about ready to hit the sack
when someone hears a rustling in the trees behind the camp site. Next thing a black rhino is spotted behind the camp. We all get up from the fire to see what's going on and see this rhino staring us, and we turn to ask our tour guide what we should do, only to realise he's not around! We run to the van and open up the doors in case the rhino gets angry and we need somewhere to hide because our tents definitely won't keep him out! The rhino then decides to walk through camp, stopping to snack on some bushes along the way. Our guide comes back and we all follow our guide who is following the rhino through the camp site and eventually he leaves us in search of some better food. Needless to say I don't think many people ventured out to the toilets that night. Honestly though, I don't think the rhino cared less about us and was just passing through.
The next day we crossed the border into South Africa, to Johannesburg. We said goodbye to our tour group and the next day took the short flight to Cape Town.
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Brady
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Hi! The quality of these photos is amazin...not to mention what's in them! Fair play to ye... x