THE MAJESTY OF THE AFRICAN ANIMALS
On 3 November we arose early in the morning.....our destination......to say our final farewell to the African animals. How I have developed a love for them. Within two hours we were among these magnificent animals that bless the land in this area. They are unique to Africa. They can be found in zoos throughout the world, but there is nothing like seeing them roam free among the African skyline. How I will miss these opportunities to be a silent observer in their lives.
In the day we saw so very much. The Lord blessed us with being able to see a great many of them. There are many times that you can go and only see a few but not the case on the 3rd of November. I know I have many blogs where I have shown the animals. This will be my last one, and I will identify what we saw and hopefully not as many pictures. I hate to bore you but eish, they have become one of the things that has endeared Africa to me.
Dennis was our safari driver and scout. He has an amazing talent of spotting the animals. He can see one that takes me minutes to find even after he is pointing it to me. The following will be 8 hours of driving through Pilanesberg. Hopefully, you will enjoy the day with me.
We sat and watched these two for a long time. They were swinging their necks around each other
Not too long after, there were lions enjoying their zebra lunch
Rhinoceros....big and small
Warthogs
This time we only saw hippos in the water and none laying on the ground
Inside most game reserves you will find HIDES. These are structures, usually by a waterhole, that are used to conceal us spectators from the animals. There were a about 4 or 5 of these throughout Pilanesberg.
The gated walkway to the hide
Closer view of the hide
Inside the hide
View of one of the waterholes
Major lens on this camera
Little bird joined me on the ledge of the hide
This was what we saw while sitting in the hide....the hide was preventing them from seeing us
Look at all the sizes of these elephants
When they reached the water, for some reason they turned and headed straight for the hide
On the far right, you can see the edge of the hide....awfully close
Dennis took this picture....look how close I was. It was a thrilling moment
We found these turtles and "fishes" at another hide
Baboons running through the grass - we did not know they had babies attached until we saw the pictures
Shame, running makes for a blurry picture.
Female waterbuck
Male waterbuck
African sacred Ibis
African Weaver
Little Brown Job
African Sacred Ibis
Yellow Billed Duck - taken at one of the hides
??
Dung beetles - we have only seen these one other time in Swaziland. So excited to see these little beetles work so hard to get their treasure - poop - up this hill. Dung beetles roll "dung" into round balls which are used as a food source or breeding chamber
And we saw it twice....
View from on top of one of the mountains
On our way home we stopped at SUN CITY. Sun City has luxury resorts and a casino. It is located between the Elands River and Pilanesberg, about two hours from Johannesburg. It was officially opened on 7 December 1979 and at the time it was located in Bantustan of Bophuthatswana. Bophuthatswana was declared an independent state by South Africa during the apartheid government so could provide entertainment such as gambling and topless revue shows which were later banned in South Africa. It became a popular holiday and weekend destination being so close to Pretoria and Johannesburg. Several famous people performed at the venue...Paul Anka, Beach Boys, Cher, Liza Minnelli, Frank Sinatra, Linda Ronstadt, and Queen. The resort has four hotels, extensive water features, fountains, pools, natural lakes, waterpark, two 18-hole golf courses (designed by Gary Player) and in 2014, the movie "Blended" with Drew Barrymore and Adam Sandler was filmed at the resort. It was a magical place.
It was a most wonderful day. We created memories that we will cherish forever.
Our final farewell to our African friends.
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