We left Thursday, July 3rd for Worcester, South Africa which is around an hour or so away. It was actually along the same path that we took way back in early June when we went to the wine fest in Robertson. We drive through the mountains and a 4km tunnel through the mountain to get there. We arrive a little early but our room was ready. We were actually the only people staying the night but they said that they were not as busy in the winter. They had three safaris booked the next day however.
We are given a map and informed how to locate our chalet. The lady informs us that we would be going through some automatic gates and to make sure we stay on the paved road while driving. So Mitch and I hop back in the car and proceed to drive to the chalet. After a few minutes passing the first gate we notice something to our left and slow down. Rhinos! Nothing between us either, and then we drive a little bit farther down and see Zebra's to our right. We pass through another set of gates and then see Lion's to our right. Now we understand the gates. They don't want the lions to eat all of the animals I guess... and of course their customers. We turn through one more set of gates and see our chalet. We look around and then head back outside, noting that the only thing between us and all of the animals is an electric fence.
About two hours after arriving we go on a "nature walk" with Andrew, our ranger. Mitch and I never really figured out the point of this as we drove to this location where we got out and walked to what looked like a damn but were then told we couldn't walk all the way up. But we did see some more baboons while we were out. When we got back he helped us start a fire and then we got ready for supper.
The next day we went to the main lodge and had breakfast then went out on the safari. It was nice because there was only one other couple with us so we got to stay at each location longer and ask questions. All of the animals roam free on this property except for the lions in which they have six. Two males and four females. Each male is in a separate area with two of the females. They had been fed the night before and morning of so they were all content. We were only able to go inside one of the lion areas because the ranger informed us with the second set of lions, the female who was trying to hide from us would most likely attack us. He said she would probably jump right into the jeep. She definitely had the stalker mode on while we were walking around the area. The ranger also said if we had a child the lion would have come right up to us.
Anyways, now for the story of the rhinos. "Lady" and "Higgins" are their names and back in December 2011 poachers over sedated them and took their horns all the way down to the growth plate. Their horns will never grow back and they are still in recovery.
Here is a video about the two rhinos. Supposedly Lady was pregnant at the time this happened as well. They are also the only two Rhinos known to survive such an attack.
The elephants were cool to see but hard to track down. At one point the one elephant turned toward us, then started walking toward us to the point where our driver drove off, afraid it might have been pissed off and would charge after us. The only thing we did not see were giraffes as the climate isn't quite right for them. He said they don't live this far south.
We left Thursday, July 3rd for Worcester, South Africa which is around an hour or so away. It was actually along the same path that we took way back in early June when we went to the wine fest in Robertson. We drive through the mountains and a 4km tunnel through the mountain to get there. We arrive a little early but our room was ready. We were actually the only people staying the night but they said that they were not as busy in the winter. They had three safaris booked the next day however.
We are given a map and informed how to locate our chalet. The lady informs us that we would be going through some automatic gates and to make sure we stay on the paved road while driving. So Mitch and I hop back in the car and proceed to drive to the chalet. After a few minutes passing the first gate we notice something to our left and slow down. Rhinos! Nothing between us either, and then we drive a little bit farther down and see Zebra's to our right. We pass through another set of gates and then see Lion's to our right. Now we understand the gates. They don't want the lions to eat all of the animals I guess... and of course their customers. We turn through one more set of gates and see our chalet. We look around and then head back outside, noting that the only thing between us and all of the animals is an electric fence.
About two hours after arriving we go on a "nature walk" with Andrew, our ranger. Mitch and I never really figured out the point of this as we drove to this location where we got out and walked to what looked like a damn but were then told we couldn't walk all the way up. But we did see some more baboons while we were out. When we got back he helped us start a fire and then we got ready for supper.
The next day we went to the main lodge and had breakfast then went out on the safari. It was nice because there was only one other couple with us so we got to stay at each location longer and ask questions. All of the animals roam free on this property except for the lions in which they have six. Two males and four females. Each male is in a separate area with two of the females. They had been fed the night before and morning of so they were all content. We were only able to go inside one of the lion areas because the ranger informed us with the second set of lions, the female who was trying to hide from us would most likely attack us. He said she would probably jump right into the jeep. She definitely had the stalker mode on while we were walking around the area. The ranger also said if we had a child the lion would have come right up to us.
Anyways, now for the story of the rhinos. "Lady" and "Higgins" are their names and back in December 2011 poachers over sedated them and took their horns all the way down to the growth plate. Their horns will never grow back and they are still in recovery. Here is a video about the two rhinos. Supposedly Lady was pregnant at the time this happened as well. They are also the only two Rhinos known to survive such an attack.
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