Night Safari South Africa

Bottlierskop – Night Safari

Friday, 4^th April

After settling in to our tent we were off on our first safari.  Doreen, however, had great difficulty getting in and out of the 4x4 and on one occasion got stuck half in/half out and couldn’t move and went into hysterics;  in the end she just left go and was caught by Geoffrey (just), although his knees did buckle a bit, under the weight of 40 days of cruising!!!

The safari park covered an area of about 150 acres of hilly finbos landscape and our ranger guide was excellent at spotting the wildlife spread all around the park.

We soon came across a family of elephants with the big male keeping a watchful eye on us to ensure we didn’t get too close.  Deeper in the bush we spotted a Kudo and Springbok, before we entered an enclosure where the lions were kept for their and our safety.  Here we encountered one male and two females very close to our 4x4.  On leaving the enclosure we saw a herd of Zebras, the rare black Impalas and Ostriches.

Scattered throughout the finbos there were growing in the wild  Proteas, all very beautiful.

Throughout the safari we kept spotting many herds of Wildebeest, which scattered as we drove nearby. 

After 2.1/2 hours of driving over very rough and bumpy terrain, we stopped alongside a waterhole for evening tipple of Champagne and to watch the sun setting over the hills.  Here we encountered our first sighting of a Rhinoceros making his way to the waterhole.

We both enjoyed the three hour trip immensely and returned to the lodge for our evening meal, where we had a choice of Ostrich, Wildebeest, Warthog, Crocodile tails, Venison plus all the normal meats, accompanied by a copious amount of the very nice South African wine, local beers and water for Doreen.

At 11.00pm we hailed our golf cart which took us down to the river in the pitch black, helped us on to our raft and pulled us across the river, where we encountered a Zebra walking past our tent.  Before we went up to our tent we admired the thousands of stars that were visible, including the Milky Way, which was clearly visible. 

After spending half an hour searching the inside of our tent with torches to satisfy Doreen that there were no snakes inside, we went to bed after a very, very enjoyable day.