Simbavati River Lodge Timbavati Private Nature Reserve

... animals near the river. AND how could we possibly beat day one... well I think today is if not better!!

It was a fairly slow start with the rain even the impala wasn't coming out to play! HOWEVER the King decided to grace us with his presence first and this was bout half hour into our trip and along the way we had about 20+ baboons (including little babies) running down the road and some battling it out over some discovered white plastic.

Before we even hit Lower Sabie ...

... ll get toasted by the sun, even in winter and spring. It may be dead cold in Cape Town while KNP will be blazing hot.
5. Plan your trip, KNP is freaking big. Do not attempt to cover too great a distance cause KNP is a massive tract of land and you might end up spending too much time traveling. What I did was to calculate the distance from the map and calculate the time required to go there and back.
6. KNP is a malaria ...

... because now we had seen it all. Unfortunately it wasn't meant to be and we stop by to check out the hippos before returning to Jackalberry.

Back at breakfast, the other group returns all excited that they got to see some lions eating a warthog. Boy did we feel bad when we told them that we were the ones that witnessed the whole thing and radio'd in to let them see some of the fun. Suckers! Breakfast was once again huge, and ...

... me stranded on the side of the road. Fortunately, we discovered that the flashing message was just a reminder that we had driven more than two hours without a break. The beeping was a reminder that the car had reached a speed of 120 km/hr (and just where was that little reminder prior to the speed trap, I wonder???). Personally, I don't think it's any of Mr. Audi's business how fast or how long I drive. My retaliatory response of intentionally driving ...

... zebras, rhinos, wildebeest, elephants, monkeys, giraffes, leopards, cheetahs, hippos, etc. He said the only thing we didn't see was the wild duck. To be honest, I wasn't that interested in seeing the wild ducks. I loved all of the baby animals. We saw baby elephants, rhinos, giraffes and monkeys. They were so adorable! We had a late lunch and then we relaxed by the pool for a few hours. There were monkeys ...

... delighted in touring us around what was a beautiful camp with a very personal touch. There were hammocks, chill out rooms, a jeep in the bar! And a large open fire around which people could gather to eat. We were soon picked up for our first activity here which was an evening sunset game drive in a nearby private game reserve called, Thornybush. It was a nice drive, we had great fun and saw huge amounts of buffalo. They are thought to be ...

... very knowledgeable, helpful, friendly and willing to take the time to explain the plight of these elephants and the others in danger. Kruger NP is a good example. While the original plan was for approximately 7000 elephants they are now populated with approximately 13,000. Their requirements for food are upsetting the ecological balance. They eat massive amounts of grasses and trees. To get to the trees they push them over thereby depriving birds of ...

... the kruger area. Musch to matthews horror we get a wake up call at 5.30am! and go out on game drvies at 6am until 9am. Then breakfast and rest or walking tour. Lunch is at 1pm and then out again at 3.30pm until 8pm for the evening drive, with dinner at 8.30am. We saw 2 lion prides - who spent most of each night raoaring at each other - they both share the same male lion - who I must say looks pretty contented ...

Day Two. 4:15am Time to catch some buffalo. 'OK guys, time to get up!' I yelled in their general direction. I had packed the night before, but I wasn't so sure about their morning speed ability, and was taking no chances. Forty-five minutes should be enough for anyone to get up, and drive the ten minutes to the scientific centre. "Hey Christian, what's your brother doing?" I asked, watching the carefully packed car landing in pieces all around the open doors. 'He's looking for ...

... the road, there in front of us was our first elephant... absolutely amazing... we got to within 10 feet of him and took loads of pictures. We stopped off for lunch in a camp called Letaba. This camp had a really good museum, which gave a whole history of the elephants in the park and also had mounted tusks of the 5 most famous elephants that have died in the park. Once again we drove northwards. We set up camp in our final restcamp ...