The Animals…during the day

The great thing about this Pilanesberg Preserve is that you can drive into the preserve by yourself during the day. Think Wild Safari Adventure at Great Adventure, only much bigger! Supposedly the animals are most active during the early morning & at sunset. So at 7am, the 10 of us pile into our H1 truck (kids in the trunk) and head off. A nice thing about going in winter was that the vegetation is sparser and easier to see through. Rachel was our elephant ‘spotter’ she was the only one that could seem to find them. But Leonard was very good at spotting animals, lots of practice when he was growing up. We also saw another pair of lions; supposedly we are very lucky to have seen lions every time we were in the park… The lions started chasing these zebras, but Leonard’s dad explained that it was just sport, that the zebras were too aware of them to be caught! We spent 6 hours driving around in the car, just stopping for come coffee & snacks halfway through. You stop at these special fenced in areas, but I still felt a little apprehensive getting out of the car. Everyone seems to regard the rules, which aren’t many (unlike the US) - don’t feed the animals & don’t get out of the car. People would stop in their car to report where they had seen certain animals nearby. The only animals that we didn’t see were the leopard, cheetah & buffalo. Poor Ryan, all he wanted to see was a buffalo, but we kept seeing wildebeest! It amazed me how some groups of animals would stay together. Like the impalas & the wildebeest, as well as the warthogs! We loved the warthogs, especially the little ones; they would crawl on the front knees eating because that was the only way their mouths would reach the ground.

Can I just say that South Africa has the cleanest, nicest public bathrooms? Even the bathroom that we went to at the remote part of the preserve didn’t have a door, you had to wind through this little brick hut to get to it (they put stones & a big branch in front of it to block the animals). But it was a very clean little bathroom with running water & toilet paper!

Another interesting thing that we saw was the burning of the park. They set intentional fires to destroy the old undergrowth, so that new grasses with more nutrients will grow. We would just see smoke during the day, but you could really see the flames at night.

We got up early the next day & also went back that night for another drive. I felt bad for Leonard, he must have drove about 15 hours in that park & probably only went 50 miles! It was hard to leave that place. Rich was in heaven – hanging out with all the animals. We did go to a market just outside of the preserve gate. We bought lots of souvenirs, including a 1m sized giraffe that we are calling Camille. Hopefully, we can get her on the plane!