Safari - Part 1

The shuttle picked us up early Sunday morning, 6:00.  That was after a panic phone call from the driver, who apparently was at the "other" #17 Victory Ave. in Pinelands.  Really??  There are two??  Funny, Mr. Delivery, who delivers our meals many nights never gets lost.  But neither here nor there, we were in the mini bus and on our way.  I don't often use the term "hurtling down the freeway", but I would have to have said that as our driver made up for lost time, from picking us up late.

Aquila Private Game Reserve is one of a small handfulls of Game Reserves in the Western Cape.  The Western Cape does not have the large Safari's that Northern Africa has, such as Kenya.  Those are the photos that most of you are famaliar with, the huge herds of gizelles and elephants, hundreds of animals at the watering hole.  This Game Preserve is not like that.  Numbers of animals are carefully monitored and regulated, and one can't have more than a certain number of a certain kind of animal in a certain amount of space, so often, animals get moved (air-lifted) between different preserves.  There are no photos of large herds, but we DID see the Big Five of South Africa (Cape Buffalo, Elephant, White Rhino, Giraffe, and Leopard.)

After a champagne breakfast (we passed on the champagne because it was so darned cold, plus, champagne before coffee???  Nope, not for me.  But we did the buffett which was pretty decent.  Then climbed into our Outback Safari vehicles to find our game.

First up, hippos. There are seven in this photo, two of them are babies.

This baby is about two years old.

A gizelle.  Our Ranger Guide said that the trees you see in this photo can go nine years with no water and without dying, which makes sense considering how dry this terain is.

Next up - White Rhinos.  From left to right, we have Mama, Daughter, and Dad.  You can tell the difference in the sex of a rhino by the size of the tusk.  The photo doesn't show it well, but the Mama tusk is much bigger than Dad's.

A closer look at the girls.  Just about the time I took this photo, they started pawing the ground, and our driver decided it was time to move on.

It took some driving around, but we found Ostrich. This is the male.  You can tell because the feathers are black.Here is his friend - and it must be a female.  Ostrichs are the second fastest animal on the African Continent, the fastest being the leopard.

That wraps up Part 1.  Not wanting to complain or anything, but uploading those few photos took over four!!! hours.  Part 2 will include:

elephants

giraffe

Eldon

the surrounding area

and a Hedgehog.  If the internet stays up that long ....