This trip is the centerpiece of our entire stay in South Africa.
On Friday morning (our last day there) we got up at the crack of dawn (like 4:30am...) piled up into our tour guide's van and headed out towards Pilanesberd National Park, about 3 hours away from Joburg.
The weather was iffy and only got worse as we got closer to the park. It was POURING the whole time and we had to drive really really carefully.
I was really concerned that the weather would scare the animals off. After all, who wants to hang out in the open when its that nasty out... Out guide confirmed that it may be a slow day as the animals would be hiding away from the rain... Wah wah...
Anywho, we got to the park and started driving around and soon enough the amazing beauty and abundance of animals started unfolding in front of us...
In the end we saw pretty much every animal we wanted to see plus we had a really close encounter with some huge lions... Amazing! Have a look at these pictures.
These signs were everywhere and we sure followed the orders..
There were baby animals everywhere...
Wild African rabbits of some sort...
Why hello there!
Black back jackal
Two males and two females hanging in the grass...
Eventually they all got up and started walking towards the road....
The whole time these four impalas were staring at them, hanging just a few yards away as if taunting the lions... come get us if you're fast enough... Ever our guide was in shock that they didn't just run away...
King of the jungle...
Amd then they all crossed the road one by one, right in between the cars and all people staring in awe...
Warthog... aka Pumba!
And wart hog babies...
\ White rhino...
Hippos...
Even a baby hippo!!
This rhino was hilarious.... He found a rock and...
...started scratching himself!!! Typical dude!
Another graceful giraffe
We even saw tons of dung beattles - apparently it is a rarity - as we were following a droppings trail of some elephants...
Road runner?
Whatcha looking at?...
And the chase paid off - we spotted this lonely male in the brush. He was huge!
And bye bye...
And then we saw a second lonely male crossing the road about 10 minutes later! What crazy luck!
Notice how we always pulled over and waited till the animals crossed and went away before driving on? In a bit I will show you what happens when you try to force your way by an animal... Not a good idea!
This was such an amazing experience and I feel we were super lucky that we saw all the animals we wanted to see despite the horrible weather.
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