07 September 2009 – Monday

A p-day that was spent driving over 300 kilometers, visiting two game parks, missing a turn so we went about 100 kilometers out of our way, and being detoured off the toll road because of an accident so we went another 20 kilometers out of our way. But it was all fun and other than being tired of driving, it was an excellent p-day.

When we got back to our boarding we just relaxed, read, did indexing – Ohio is easier than Wisconsin – and went to bed rather early. Mary called Cindy and wished her happy birthday. Since they talked a long time last night, they did not have a lot more to say tonight.

They say pictures are worth a thousand words so here are a few thousand words about the day.

We went to the left and entered the Imfolozi side of the park. We are getting pretty good at spotting game so when we saw this spot in the shade of a tree a few hundred yards away we got out our binoculars and found this Rhino enjoying a rest from the heat of the sun.

Impalas are everywhere and I seldom take pictures of them, but Mary does and here are three good examples of what we saw yesterday only they were in groups of up to 30 animals.

We usually also see lots of nyalas but this time we only saw this one male. However he was a good looking one and was happy to pose. We figure this tree was supposed to be on the other side of the world – here it is just upside down. I wonder which way birds sit on the branches.

We saw lots of giraffes today. I like the way we caught this one picking the leaves off one at a time. We see a lot of the backs of animals. Mary took a number of pictures of these two giraffes and was finally rewarded with one at least turning its head.

We came across a large family of baboons eating leaves. They pick them off one at a time so they keep busy. They were on both sides of the road and the middle guy just sat and stared at me as I stared at him. I wanted to take a picture of the back end of one but Mary said it was gross. So giraffe behinds are OK – baboons are gross.

We actually came across these two large rhinos lounging in a mud pile before we saw the one above resting in the shade. One of them was nice enough to get up and pose for us – the other one could have cared less. They were about 20 yards away from the car.

As we drove out of a camp area, we came across these two wildebeests on one side of the road and the zebras right across from them on the other side. It was almost like they were placed there so the tourists would have something to look at up close and personal.

We were happy when we got to this direction sign because it meant we were less then 5 kilometers from the gate. Along the way to the gate we came across this signed that warned us that there might be water in the upcoming dip. But it is pretty much dry season so there was not and we were just as happy. After we left Imfolozi we came across this wild animal standing in the middle of the road – it felt like we were back in Swaziland.

After leaving Imfolozi we had a nice drive to Ophathe Game Reserve and went in to see what was there. We found out that most of the Reserve can only be seen in a 4×4 vehicle. But we drove around on some nasty gravel roads and ate our lunch – rusks and drinks – while looking at this waterhole. Nice view and there was a herd of impalas feeding in the trees nearby but nothing came to drink. This is a huge reserve and has both black and while rhinos so we might rent a 4×4 and come back to see if we can finally see a black rhino up close. It has a beautiful reception center with a number of people on duty but it does not seem to be a very popular place for visitors. When Mary signed us in on the 7th the last group before us went through on the 3rd.