Imake a Difference's Supporter Trip to South Africa 2014 - Day 6

DAY SIX:

Today was an early start; we left the camp at 6am to go to Tempe Elephant Park. Unfortunately our safari ute had problems with the clutch and the starter motor so we had to borrow Andrew’s 4x4 to do the morning drive while our open top ute got fixed.

The morning safari started off slowly with not much game to see, just a few impala and nyala floating around but we're a bit bored of them by now as we have seen so many. But as the sun came up and the temperature got warmer, more animals started coming out. We saw two groups of elephants but they wouldn’t come out for a good photo shot, they like to hide behind the trees. We also saw a lion sitting next to the waterhole in the sun, with many impala surrounding him, relaxing in the sun. I think he had already had his breakfast for this morning so he wasn’t interested in much around him. Ingrid named this one Simon. We also saw a blue balled monkey and saw many lovely birds at the hide looking through our binoculars.

We then returned to the camp site for a delicious breakfast of French toast and bacon. Before we went out on the afternoon drive, the girls thought we could walk to the butterfly dome which is within our camp to look at the butterflies. Unfortunately it wasn’t quite the right time of year to see the beautiful butterfly but we saw many caterpillar and chrysalis.

Then it was time to do our afternoon drive. It started off with a bang! We saw an elephant very close to us on our right rummaging through the leaves. It was so close that it started walking towards us and we had to quickly start our vehicle and get it moving before we were gone-burger! Then another few hundred metres in front of us, there was another elephant walking towards us. It was only about 10 metres in front of us. Was a bit scary as we were in his planned walking path, made for some great photos though! We had to reverse a bit and luckily he pulled off to the side, allowing us to pass.

We also had a great siting of two mongooses fighting in the middle of the road, two male nyala locking horns and having a play fight and great viewing of a group of buffalo. Then after that we had another magnificent siting of lion walking, we had to illegally drive up a no exit road to get a better viewing but it was well worth it.

Now we are back in the camp chatting waiting for dinner. What a great day! Seeing the lion (Simon) and elephant up close was definitely one of the highlights of my trip.