Heath has visited Pilansberg 3 times in about 1 week. The first time he went he went with John (brother-in-law) & Richard(John's son) for 4 days. They went camping and had some great sightings i.e. banded mongoose, lion, elephant, zebra, rhino, impala, springbok, hippo, red haartebees, black backed jackal, tortoise, snakes. They saw the lion when they went out for a game drive on one of the evenings. There have been quite a few veld fires in the park and some of them will still going.
Heath then came back to Jo'burg on Saturday afternoon to then shoot off again on Sunday morning. A friend of ours who works for BHP Billiton asked Heath if he would mind taking a guy who was landing from Australia around for the day. So Heath did his duty and took Ben around the park. Once again he got to see alot but he was unable to show Ben lion. They only got to the park around 10:00am after Heath had fetched Ben from the airport and the temperature reached 38 degrees so the chance of seeing lion in that heat was slim.
Then on Tuesday night we went to Deanne and Johns house for a braai and not sure how it all started but before we knew it we were planning to go back there on Thursday. So everything planned I put in my leave on Wednesday morning and we were on our way on Thursday morning to Pilansberg. We were only camping and for one night so did not really have to plan too much. Deanne and John pitched their tent which has two little rooms on either side of the main tent - so all was sorted. Their tent comes form the UK and I have never seen so many guide ropes on a tent in my life - believe me this tent was going nowhere!
After arriving just after noon. We had a bit of lunch at the main area at Manyane. We had to build up a little energy before we started pitching the tent of course! It only took us about a hour to get all organised with the tent.
Just in time to go out for a game drive. As the park has burnt quite alot the animals are mainly concentrated around the Mankwe dam so luckily we did not have to travel too far. When we got to main dam in the afternoon we were just in time to see a herd of elephant come down to the waterhole for a bath and drink. What a great sighting - we could have sat there for hours. The baby elephants are just too cute for words, they seem to fall over there own feet but have loads of fun.
We also saw hippo, plenty plenty giraffe, lots of rhino and most of them with babies, zebra, wildebeest, red haartebees, impala, spingbok, slender mongoose, black backed jackal, waterbuck.
On Friday morning we were up and already in the park by 6:30am! But it was all worth it in the end as we got to see two lioness walking across the veld over the road and then into the distance. We found out later that the lioness that we saw (her name escapes me at the moment) is the largest female in the park. The one park ranger told us that he is sure that her skull is bigger than some of the males. Believe me she is huge!!!
Then to top it all off we got to see cheetah - one of my favourite :) She was not close enough for pictures and as she was on a kill she was not walking around too much. Plus, we had been told by one of the game guards that they had waited 45 minutes to see the cheetah get up. We had luck on our side and came around the corner saw the cheetah immediately and then sat and watched her for a while before she settled down again.
So all in all we had a great two days and by lunchtime we were back on the road home, but I felt like I had been away for at least three days so I was well relaxed by the time I got home and only to start the week-end.
Good one!
Cheers
N
1 comment:
*sigh*! you lucky thing...
maybe heath should look into becoming a professional tour guide.
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