Our Trip to Pilanesberg National Park
How do you stop a rhino from charging? You unplug him. 🤣
But seriously though,😯 you drive away really, really quickly.
We were driving right next to two rhinos who walked into the road. They were obviously not as delighted as we were with the situation. One of the rhinos started huffing and puffing and turned to look at us with an angry face. So we drove out of the way as quickly as we could… Maybe it wasn’t quite ready to charge into us, but it’s scary even thinking that it could.
Shame, all the rhinos’ horns are prophylactically cut off to prevent them from being poached. Natey, who is now 4, asked if the animals love the people. (He sometimes catches me off guard with his questions!) I told him I’m not sure if the animals always love the people, but we love the animals.
We were fortunate to spend a week in Manyane Resort in Pilanesberg National Park. Thank you to Kobus’s mom, Game Ranger Ansie. 💜
Just outside our chalet we experienced an entire safari’s worth of wildlife! Impalas, kudus, monkeys, baboons, hornbills, guineafowls, go-away-birds and many other birds! One night we even saw a bush-baby in the tree!
I was happy with our animal spotting during our game drives! Although Kobus says usually they see a lot more animals. There has been a lot of rain this year so the Bush is very thick. We soon realized the best time to go looking for animals is just before the gate closes from 5pm till 7pm. This was when we saw the most animals up close. We saw giraffes, rhinos, jackals, lions walking on the road, wildebeest and zebras with their babies, and hippos in the water. We almost saw a leopard, but instead stared at the grass where it allegedly was for half an hour while we tried to get out of the traffic jam of cars and safari trucks all looking for the mysterious, Houdini-leopard. (Linley and Kobus saw a leopard up close during one of their other drives!)
We noticed all the tour guides made their tourists coffee with Amarula in… Marcus bought a bottle of over-priced Amarula at the gift shop so we could also enjoy Safari Coffee! (It’s delicious, but maybe not recommended if you want to be awake and energetic.)
We also spent a day at Sun City, which we had to book tickets for online the day before. (This was a bit of a challenge because of the poor cellphone reception and constant loadshedding.) But Sun City was a whole adventure in itself! We spent most of our time there at the Valley of Waves. Natey didn’t quite measure up to the required 1.2m height limit for the big slides but he really enjoyed the kiddies slide and the main wave pool. Leo measured just over 1.2m which meant he could go on any slide! He went down the Temple of Courage slide twice! He said Ovango was the scariest… but for me seeing him go on that 17m vertical drop (part of the 70m slide) was definitely the most terrifying! Leo and Marcus also went on the Zip Lines which they said was a lot of fun.
We also did the famous Maze of the Lost City. We each got a turn to lead the way and get everyone lost. We eventually found the way to the ice cream and craft beer!
The kids had still not passed out yet, so we played some games at the Arcade Center. It was such an eventful day, it felt like a whole holiday in one day!
We did secret-santa-virtual-gifts which was different and exciting.
Thank you to Linley and Kobus for organizing this really memorable holiday! And for Kobus for being an excellent tour guide.
Grateful for a lekker trip and that we all got home safe.
