South African Game Reserve

Today I am going to tell you about what I thought about our three days at a game reserve in South Africa……………

So when we arrived we drove up to reception and thought to ourselves that this reserve is really close to the highway. The people working at reception told us to get all of our things out of the car because we are driving you thirty minutes into the bush! That’s when we started to get excited we parked our car and got into another car and off we went. On the drive to the camp the driver pointed out a few birds and buck for us. We could see all of the different side roads that we were going to be taking tomorrow on our other drives. At our camp the first thing we saw was two elephants on the hill. It was so neat seeing these elephants greeting us. We also saw the big jeeps taking us out on the safari drives. The trucks were big eleven seater no roof trucks and looked amazing. We opened the door to the bar and they had a fire going and four glasses of home aid ice tea for us. She showed us the dinning room and they put out some food for us before dinner. She also showed us our room. It was a very nice room with two single beds with a wooden wall in between and on the other side there was a king bed. There was a bath, shower and toilet. They even left Vea and I a treat on our bed. Our deck overlooked the jungle and was open for animals to roam. Five minutes past and we decided to go to the Dining hall to have that snack they put out for us. But it was not just a snack there was meet, veggies, fruit, and desert. We made sure not to eat a lot because we new that dinner was soon. After that we saw some people by the fire so we went to chat with them for awhile. At dinner we got to talk with some of the staff and drivers for the game drives and dinner was so good. The first night it was only 2 other people and us. It was fun to chat with the local people and all the rangers too. We sat around the fire and watched the performance and they got us to go up and dance with them. It was so nice there. Then we headed back to our place and went to sleep because the staff is going to wake us up at 6:00 tomorrow morning for our first game drive!

Driving to our lodge at Lalibela Game Reserve

An African dance by the fire

The proud South African flag

Day Two
We all heard the knock on the door at 6:00. All of us were so exited so it only took us about seven minutes to get out the door. Then we walked down to the dining room for our light breakfast. I had rice crispy’s and toast with some fruit. After that we walked up to the trucks and hopped into the back row of the truck because our ranger said it was the bumpiest. Off we went and in about five minutes of driving we saw a killed buck on the side of the road and our ranger said that a cheetah killed it because they eat the back first. Then we ventured onto a side road that lead strait into the open wilderness! It was very bumpy in the back and it was a bit cold but they gave us blankets on the drive to keep us warm. As we headed down a steep loose dirt road the ranger stopped and got out to check the tires and he got back in and said “we have a flat tire.” We were on a hill so we had to roll down to flat ground but we were driving on a complete rim. Five minutes past and we reached the bottom, we all got out and Mom spotted some giraffe on the top of a ridge just across from us. Our ranger pulled out a cooler and got out coffee, hot chocolate and muffins. They were so worming and to top it all off we ate those while watching the giraffes. Then Dad and I went to go check out how the tire was going and he said that his jack was broken. So he called up his friend and asked if he could bring him his Jack to borrow. In about ten minutes we heard his truck come down the hill. After about one hour of trying to fix the tire we finally got it and we were off again. Then he drove us past a pond and we saw lots of hippos. He said that hippos are one of the most dangerous animals because they can almost open there mouth to 180 degrees, and because of how big the teeth are. It was such a cool thing to see a hippo open his mouth and did you know that hippos can hold there breath for six minutes and that they do not swim they walk on the ground of the pond. Then we drove to the front of the reserve and saw some buck running that was cool too. On our way back we saw some zebra and if you look really close every zebra has a different pattern and the black stripes have a bit more volume to them. When we got back we got hot towels for our hands and face. After that we went to the dining hall to have brunch. It smelled so good when I walked in and all the food looked so good. They had bacon, eggs, toast, cereal, fruit and lots of other things. After brunch we went back to our room before the next game drive. We saw most of the same things but sinse we left at 3:00 in the afternoon it started to get dark and our ranger pulled out the spot light after we had our hot chocolate. It gets pretty cold in the night so the hot chocolate warms you so much. We set out and our guide said that when I shine the light on an animal you will see two dots that are coloured, those are the animals eyes reflecting of the light. We saw a few coloured dots but they were only buck. When we got back we had the cloths handed to us, that was really nice. Then we went to the dining hall to have dinner and desert. The dinner was amazing and the desert was superb. It was a chocolate browny with chocolate saws and ice cream . We sat around the camp fire and some new people had come so we started to talk to some people that were from holland and people that were from Toronto Canada. Then we went to sleep so that we were ready for the next day.

Waterboks in the open fields

A Giraffe walking along the hilltop

Hippos watching us in the water

Zebras in the distance

Day Three
We got the wake up knock again at 6:00. It was a bit harder to get up this time but we still did. We were off again to the truck. Our ranger brought us to the killed buck and he saw that some hyenas were eating it last night. On our drive that day we got to see a family of Lions, rhino, more zebra and giraffe, hippos and we even got to see a new born Elephant. The elephant was only hours old. He was still big but tiny when you think of the size of an elephant. It was an amazing experience to see a Lion family so close and same with the rhinos. We got back and got the hot face clothes “which was one of the things I was looking foreword to when we got back.” I ended up making friends with three other boys and we played soccer and rugby all day tell lunch then tell our game drive. We were so lucky that on both game drives we saw Lions and rhino. All thought we did not get to see water buffalo we got to see them in Addo. When we got back from the second game drive we had dinner then desert then the three of us went out to go play some more soccer.

Looking closely and patiently wildlife

Some friends that we made on our Safari drives

A tiger prowling in the early morning

A Rhino resting in the long grass

The morning we leave
For our last morning we got the light breakfast and then we got to go on a short game drive. After the game drive he dropped us off at reception and we said good bye. We got in our car and drove to Addo Elephant park. It was a self driven reserve so Dad drove the car. The first thing we saw were tons of Elephants everywhere. On our way back we got to finally see our Water buffalo and we got to see hundreds of Elephants only a few meters away from us. Mom got really scared and so did Dad Because he was driving, all the Elephants while we were driving came right up to us. It was such a cool experience. I loved Lalibella game reserve and Addo, it was an awesome experience and loved every bit of it that I will never forget. And that was what I thought about the game reserve in South Africa!

A giant African Elephant that we drove past at Ado

A huge group of elephants at Ado

(A Klog is a Blog by Kai. Kai + Blog = Klog!)