Last Thursday I was watching the sunrise and the scenery changing from Highveld to mountains, through the tunnel (yes I held my breathe) a couple of neccesary pit stops and 7 hours later, a dirt road lead us to the Kruger National Park. For those of you that don't know, this is one of the largest nature reserves in Africa spanning over 19, 485 kilometres squared and located both in the Limpopo and Mpumalanga provinces. The area we stayed in was on the Limpopo side at my friends house called Ntsiri. The house is remote, with little sign of civilisation or other people and completely unfenced from the reserve (which includes the big 5 and a number of other dangerous animals). This was both exhilarating and a little terrifying.
Upon arrival we headed straight for the swimming pool, also unfenced and I had my first swim of the Summer.
Later we went to the watering hole for sundowners and were soon greeted by the most amazing site, a breeding herd of about 40 elephants came to drink not even 50m in front of us. They had in tow the tiniest new born baby. One of the older elephants kicked the baby over and I swear I was ready to step in and defend it (God knows how I thought I could do that) Luckily an equally protective group of mommies formed a circle around it and helped it up and they carried on playing and drinking from the river.
The rest of the weekend was filled with food and drinking too much and a lot of laughing over very silly things. We saw a myriad of birds, Hornbills, Lilac breasted rollers, Glossy Starlings, an Owl, a Fish Eagle, Franklin's, Yellow Weavers etc.. as well as a hippo, a bush baby (OMG!!!!!), many elephants and impala, kudu, giraffe's, sadly no big cats but we did get to see a rhino on two, close up occasions which is really exciting considering how these amazing animals are being poached to the verge of extinction due to the common misconception that their horns increase the size of a man's penis.
Anyway, I had a lot of fun and spent most of the weekend dressed like this...
....because I can
Upon arrival we headed straight for the swimming pool, also unfenced and I had my first swim of the Summer.
Later we went to the watering hole for sundowners and were soon greeted by the most amazing site, a breeding herd of about 40 elephants came to drink not even 50m in front of us. They had in tow the tiniest new born baby. One of the older elephants kicked the baby over and I swear I was ready to step in and defend it (God knows how I thought I could do that) Luckily an equally protective group of mommies formed a circle around it and helped it up and they carried on playing and drinking from the river.
The rest of the weekend was filled with food and drinking too much and a lot of laughing over very silly things. We saw a myriad of birds, Hornbills, Lilac breasted rollers, Glossy Starlings, an Owl, a Fish Eagle, Franklin's, Yellow Weavers etc.. as well as a hippo, a bush baby (OMG!!!!!), many elephants and impala, kudu, giraffe's, sadly no big cats but we did get to see a rhino on two, close up occasions which is really exciting considering how these amazing animals are being poached to the verge of extinction due to the common misconception that their horns increase the size of a man's penis.
Anyway, I had a lot of fun and spent most of the weekend dressed like this...
....because I can
VIEW 25 of 25 COMMENTS
totem:
They are expensive, especially the seal mink one, but they become part of the family so I'm willing to pay it
linna:
The bird is really original, but very beautiful