Day 11

This is not officially our last day in South Africa, but since tomorrow is mostly a travel day it feels like the last day😢.

Today started with our traditional 6:00 a.m. game drive. It was another beautiful morning, and while we’d already seen pretty much every species they have here, it was nice e just to be out enjoying the nature. That was until our Ranger, James, suddenly said, “OH, look, guys, it’s our black Rhino!” We were told on day 1 that this reserve only housed one black Rhino because they are extremely endangered. Given that it’s home is several thousand acres, he is very hard to find. Apparently not when you have magic Ranger James as your guide! He was pretty far away, and even when we moved closer, he was in some thin brush, so nobody could get a super clear picture.

This left just the occasional random leopard that does enter the park, but otherwise we had now officially seen all of their major species. As we continued our drive, we came upon the “Three Single Ladies” again, a.k.a. the 3 female elephants that are together 24/7. They were enjoying a nice breakfast of tree limbs and leaves. After we left them, a bit further along we noticed a few giraffes, who suddenly started running (or galloping, actually). James said it looked like something had spooked them. We followed them down the road, and then saw some zebras. All of a sudden the Zebras started running away as well. It seemed like there might be a predator in the area, based on the way they were behaving. We stopped at the giraffes again, and as they crossed the road in front of us one did start running briefly. I was happy that I managed to get a quick video of the giraffe galloping, because they are so majestic even moving quickly. A little further down the road came up to two young giraffes, and James said the smaller one (at 7 feet tall), was only 5 weeks old. Like the one yesterday, he still had his umbilical cord attached. I don’t think they were siblings, but they were super cute!

After breakfast we went to a different parts of the reserve that has a separate lodge called “The Game Lodge.” The original owner of the land and the resort had died a few years ago, but his wife and daughter still live on site, overseeing the operation. The original owner, Robert Shaw, bought the land in 1981 with money he had made mining diamonds. The family still has a private collection that you can view by appointment, and since it was forecast to rain and we had no other plans we took a trip up to the lodge to see the collection. The daughter of Robert Shaw did a nice presentation on the history of the stones, and of course there were stones and jewelry to buy from their collection. The afternoon was spent sitting by the pool, even though it was cloudy, and relaxing.

This evening game drive would be our last late-day drive. When we got to the meeting point James told us he had planned a “Sundowners” drive, where we’d drive for about an hour and then stop on a hill top for drinks. Since everyone in the group besides Jeff and I (well, not totally Jeff) had been day drinking by the pool since after lunch, everyone thought this was a fabulous idea, and three purchased bottles of wine later we were on our way! Once again, expectations were not sky high, as we’d already seen most of the species on our reserve. But in Lucky James Style, we ended up finding the elusive black Rhino again, pretty much right away. After we’d been watching him for awhile we suddenly noticed the Three Single Ladies a.k.a the three female elephants on the opposite side of the road a ways back. There were also two White Rhinos on the opposite side of the road, very close to the road edge.

The Black Rhino on our right-hand side just sort of wandered into the brush down the road, but suddenly we heard a noise, and one of the white Rhinos from the left-hand side of the road ran out and charged a jeep full of passengers in front of us! It was mostly just an aggressive “front,” but was still a little scary! After that, the Jeep made the smart decision to turn around and head off. The white rhinos were still on the same side as the elephants, and the elephants decided that they wanted to cross the road, but there was then a confrontation between the elephants and the rhinos! This included some trumpeting, and then, I kid you not, one of the elephants picked up a stick and threw it at the rhinos as a way to say, “get out of our way!” When this didn’t work, she repeated the stick throwing two more times!!! It was unbelievable! Eventually the rhino decided it had had enough “bullying” and wandered across the road! You can see the elephant throwing the stick in the video! After the third throw the rhinos decided they had had enough bullying and crossed the road first!

That was a pretty fun thing to witness, and as always, we would be satisfied with just that…but we weren’t done yet! Our next stop was a mother rhino with a very young baby…probably only a few months old. The baby was laying down for the longest time, but when a pack of zebras decided to run by it, it lept up and ran straight to its momma! Adorable!! On our way to our hilltop cocktails we encountered a group of water buffalos with some babies. These babies were also absolutely adorable! Seeing all the beautiful mature animals has been great, but my heat definitely has a soft spot for all the babies!

James then took us to a great hilltop spot where we drank white wine out of paper cups and told stories. James told us the story about the village he is from, where, as is the usual practice, a male must buy 11 cows to present to the family of the girl he wants to marry as a dowry. This will cost the male the equivalent of roughly eight thousand US dollars! Based on what the average working wage is for people who live in these villages, that is a pretty large task. And even though it’s 2025, James said if you are a member of a tribe (and most native people here are), this rule has not and will not change. He said sometimes the female’s family will accept less, on a case-by-case basis.

After the three bottles of wine were finished, we headed down the hill and out of the reserve. Since it had just gotten dark by this point, James used his spotter light to look for animals on the way out. Our golden unicorn was a hippo that had climbed out of the water, as they do at night. Unfortunately we only saw two that were still in the water. Apparently it wasn’t quite dark enough for them yet!

Another great day, and more memories that we’ll have forever! Leaving tomorrow will be SOOO HARD!!