Sunday, May 7, 2017

Saturday May 6 (part 1 - Lion Country Safari)

After yesterday today dawned a gorgeous day. There was not a cloud in the sky and it was pleasantly warm with a breeze. We set off for the Lion Country Safari about 9.00 am so we would be there not too long after it opened and before it really warmed up.

We elected to go straight to the Drive-Through Safari and we were given a returnable CD which gave a commentary of each of the seven areas. 

It was very well organised, each of the different areas is setup with animals representative of a certain area of the world.

Las Pampas (South America) - we saw the Aldabra Tortoise, Brazilian Tapir, Alpaca and Greater Rhea. We also saw some Brown Pelican which have been injured and cannot be released back into the wild.

Ruaha National Park (African wilderness) - here we saw a large number of Kudu, Impala and Ostrich, in fact the latter seemed to be everywhere, lol!

Kalahari Bushveldt (an area in SW Africa) - again we saw many Nile Lechwe (aquatic antelope), Ostrich and Scimitar-Horned Onyx.

Gir Forest (India) - here lived many Asiatic Water Buffalo, Nilgal (antelope), Blackbuck and Kulan (Asian wild ass)

The Gorongosa Reserve (N Mozambique) - this is where we saw the African Lions, they were behind fences but we still got some good views.

The Serengeti Plains (E Africa) - here we saw a variety of species and they are obviously breeding well, lol, Common Eland (largest African antelope), Ostrich, Wildebeest or Gnu, Common Waterbuck (they have the white circle on their rump), Ankole Cattle (very large horns) and Impala. It was here we saw a couple of young bucks testing each other out, lol!! 

Hwange National Park (W Zimbabwe) -  here we saw many Southern White Rhinoceros (wide mouth for grazing), Common Zebra, Jackson's Hartebeest (one of the fastest and enduring antelope), Chimpanzee, White Handed Gibbon and Giraffe. 

The chimpanzee had three islands with plenty of climbing structures, the Gibbon had their own area as well. It was fascinating to watch the white Gibbon drinking water using his hand to scoop it up out of the stream. 

It was here that the car windscreen was "attacked" by a Rhea, lol! We think it was trying to "eat" the label on the inside of the screen! 

It had "inspected" the car in front of us and then went on to "inspect' the car following us, lol!

We took our time driving through and it took us  a couple of hours and I managed over 400 photos. Many other people overtook us seemingly in a hurry. it is so much better to take the time to really enjoy the animals.

When we reached the end and came out, we went and had some lunch and then decided to leave.



































































































































































No comments:

Post a Comment