Day Off
Amidst all the running around of the last few days, we took Saturday to have fun. We got up at 4am to leave for Pilanesberg National Park which is about 1 1/2 hours northeast of Pretoria. We spent the day on a veritable safari -- elephants, hippos, rhinos, zebras, giraffes, one very sleepy lion, and much more. Very much fun and really incredible to experience. We drove the roads of the park for the entire day, finishing with the search for a lion that we'd heard about from one of the rangers we met along the way. We found him just as the sun set, the aforementioned drowsy lion, that is. He was yawning in the grass about about a hundred yards from the road. Our cars parked on the shoulder attracted the attention of other visitors and by the time we left the two lane road had become completely jammed with curious people peering into the bushes, the cars bristling with long lenses and binoculars. That lion must have felt like quite a celebrity.
The picture above is the early morning sky as we sped across the plains. The panorama below is the view from one of the "hides" overlooking one of the big water holes. You may not be able to see them, but there are three hippos in the water to the left. There's an ostrich in the distance. There are a couple Pied Kingfishers on one of the branches and a number of African Darters (birds) scattered around. And that's just for starters...
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