I don’t really have much to say about our transfer day other than to say we are happy to be out of the lodge we were staying in at Kasane and back in Johannesburg. The Protea Balalaika is a beautiful hotel and we had a really nice dinner once we were checked in.
We have just got back from our all day Safari at Pilanesberg National Park. We were picked up by Craig at 6 am to be taken the 2 hours to Pilanesberg. The National Park is formed out of the crater of an extinct super volcano and is the home to all of the big 5. The park has been reclaimed from farm land and a number of the big 5 species were reintroduced. They have a population of both black and white Rhinos in the park.
After we connected with our game vehicle and driver we were off into the park. The first thing we saw were Hippos at a small dam, then the animals started appearing left right and centre (literally right in front of our car). Our driver was a big cat enthusiast especially Leopards. He had already spotted one that morning (and some Cheetahs), so he was wanting to find more.
I will say that I have been unable to take some photos today because a number of our big cat sightings were a little far away. We saw lions on a dam wall about 1000m from our car (my binoculars that I bought before we came here were put to good use to spot them) and two white rhinos about the same distance away all of which we couldn’t get photos of.
Our first sighting as well as various Zebra, Giraffe, Impalas and Kudus was a leopard who was out hunting he/she walked right behind our car. There was a little traffic chaos as people were trying to see the leopard.
We then moved on to a mother Cheetah and her two cubs who were hidden in the long grass. They were staying where they were because they had just killed an Impala.
From here we saw our second Leopard who moved towards a tree where there was a freshly killed Impala hanging there waiting for it to return.
After we had had lunch we went looking for Black Rhino. As we came around the corner there was a bunch of Zebra, Impala and Kudu all standing together, just as we drove by they all panicked running past the car and behind it. We knew something had spooked them so we pulled over waiting for what we thought might be Lions or Cheetahs. It wasn’t either of them, a leopard comes sauntering out in front of us and then lay down on the side of the road and rolled in Hippo dung to try and mask its sent then it sauntered off eyeing off the Impala.
We have been very lucky, both our driver and Colin said that seeing three individual leopards in one day is very rare.
We were now running a bit short of time as we needed to drop Peter and Jayenne off at the airport for their flight to Dubai. We were delayed by a few Rhino’s, a herd of Elephant, a herd of Elephants lying down asleep and a Giraffe feeding on the road blocking cars in both directions.
We are now back at the Protea and will need to start packing as we head back to Australia tomorrow.
davstuholidays 