Mokolodi Game Reserve

We went on our first 'safari' on Saturday. The location is called the Mokolodi Game Reserve, and is only about 30 minutes from where we live. It was awesome. The reserve area is HUGE. I don't know how many acres it covers...I guess I could actually look that up and provide an accurate report for you...but that makes too much sense! We went at 7:30 in the morning...while the animals were still active, and before it got too hot. The morning was overcast, so it was perfect for animals to be out. B was actually counting the numbers of animals we saw...not the species...and lost count after about 45. The numerous impalas did her in. She decided to just enjoy viewing God's creatures, and to stop counting them! Good call. The tour lasted for 2 hours. We were in the back of a truck...which had stadium-style seating installed in the bed of the truck. There were 3 rows of bench seats, covered by a canopy. There were 8 of us on the trip. Four NC Guardsmen were here last week for a conference, and this was their last day in Gabs before heading back. We were glad to share the safari with them. The one species of animal we didn't see were giraffes! You'd think they would be easy to spot...but we didn't see the first one. Everything is still so green here (as you can see in the pics) so spotting animals is difficult. The best time to go on safari is around April or May (our fall).

The first pic above is of 2 female elephants with their handler. The handler is from India. The amazing thing is he verbally instructed the elephants to move closer to us...so we could see them more easily. And the elephants immediately obeyed his instruction. (Oh, if I would only obey the Lord's instructions so quickly!) The elephants were about 20 feet from us. BTW, we never got out of the safari truck. That is a 'no no'. When animals see the vehicle, we're told they don't really notice the people...unless we were to get out. We did stand up to get better pictures, views and such, but didn't get out. Besides, the elephants are used to being around people...since they each have a handler. The elephants were amazing to watch....the power in their trunks. Another thing we learned....if you look at the shape of the elephant's ear...it is shaped like the African continent...which is an indicator it is from Africa, and not Asia. Cool how God made them that way.

Here is a short video clip of the elephants eating...stretching to get some tasty leaves.

This is a pic of the girls with our guide and driver. His name is Kaesa (pronounced kay-sa). He was extremely friendly, and very knowledgeable about the animals. Even while he was focused on driving through the sometime 'rough' terrain, he spotted animals before we did!





The landscape of the reserve was so beautiful!!! Lush green and rolling hills.

Even though the cheetahs were behind an extremely large fenced in area --- this guy was curious and came out to greet us. He is one of the 2 male cheetahs there at the reserve...and they're brothers. The cheetah was so close to us....about 7-10 feet away, that we could hear him purr!!!
















The male ostrich shown here (with the black colored body) was the very first animal we saw. He was so tall!!!! I managed to get this pic while his head was up....because he kept ducking his head down behind the bush.

This is the female ostrich (notice how she is lighter in color....that's how you tell the male from the female). She was at another part of the reserve, they were no where close. She just sat on the ground the entire time, but did turn her head to look at us once. We thought she might be sitting on an egg or something. Then again, maybe she was just resting!

The wart hogs were so ugly that they were cute!!! Especially the little baby warthog!

The zebras were probably my most favorite animal to see...in addition to the cheetah. Just as no two people have the same fingerprints... no two zebras have the same stripe patterns. God is amazing.

At one point we saw 5 or 6 zebras together...as we approached, they went the other way.







These are just a few of the many, many groups of impalas we saw. The male impalas have the antlers. They were graceful and lean creatures. We're told the only predator that can catch them is the cheetah....which is probably why the cheetah was behind a fenced area. You think?























The two male impalas facing one another are fighting....knocking their antlers together. I wish I had videod them in action. The sound was amazing. OK, I've got to check my thesaurus and come up with another word for amazing. I'll do that another time. Anyway, you get the idea that the sights and sounds of the antlers clashing was pretty incredible.

For my next post, I'll tell you about a couple of the friends the girls have made...of course there will be pics!