"Not all Who Wander are Lost": "Poor Man's Serengeti"

Following the adventures in Addo, our safari tour brought us to South Africa’s North West Province and the Pilanesberg Game Reserve. We learned of this park from a co-worker of Mrs. Tarzia who is South African and gave us several great recommendations for our trip. We had been informed from others who’ve visited Africa that it is easy to book a safari once in country and better yet to do so locally with our own transportation or finding a local guide who would come along. We thought we were going to have to do a short and costly safari guided tour with a company, but that was definitely not the case. Armed with a suggested park (once in country we were bombarded with information on game parks, it’s overwhelming, so knowing where to go was a huge help! Also sticking to a South African National Park site is a bit nicer as well) and a rented vehicle (which, by the way, is the cheapest method of transport in South Africa for some reason – no problem for us, we are happy to take care of ourselves) we were on our way to two full days of game viewing.

Pilanesberg is a unique park in that its ecosystem is an extinct volcano which makes it hospitable to several species of animal and plant that normally could not live in the same area since some rely heavily on wetlands and others only survive well in dry areas. It’s a beautiful park and has all the same animals, and more, as some of the more well-known (and more expensive) parks. We loved the park and really explored as much as we could.

This is a much bigger park than Addo, covering 500,000 hectares so we had a lot of space to wander and view not only animals but stunning landscapes. Since it is so large, we learned later in the day to focus on the plain area where we’d have the best chance of spotting lions and cheetah. Of course, it’s some wide open plain, so binoculars would have been helpful.

Cats aside, we saw a lot of animals including our first giraffe! That was a really exciting sighting because ginnie saw something far in the distance which looked like a big tree, but it seemed to move, so we headed that way and sure enough there were several giraffes walking along the plain and stopping to graze from treetops – so incredible, we watched them for a good 40 minutes! We also spotted some new animals on this trek. The photos document our list of the animals we saw while on safari in Pilanesberg for two full days.

FYI, on a safari tour you get a 2-3 hour drive and don’t determine where you go, so once the time is up it’s up and that costs more than driving yourself around for a full day! Also, Pilanesberg is really affordable; we paid less than $25US for the full day at the park. The price will go up on May 1^st, but only by R20, which is just over $3US, so it’s definitely a great way to do safari (hence the nickname “The Poor Man’s Serengeti”).

this vervet monkey was our first animal sighting in Pilanesberg

this photo has a funny story; first, it is not our photo, it's from the Pilanesberg website from our first day at the park (20 April). we were driving toward the Mankwe plain when we saw a couple safari trucks and other vehicles stopped. we looked in the direction they were looking, but didn't see anything ahead; the people in the truck were laughing and we thought they were pulling a prank. as we passed the truck (on the left since that's the side of driving in SA) ginnie looked out her window and right there was this elephant with this stick in its mouth! due to park etiquette, we could not stop and block road access and it was so sudden the camera wasn't ready and earlier that day an elephant close like this lashed out and squealed at people and waved its trunk when they passed that close and took photos (we were one of those it lashed at!). there is another pic of the same ellie somewhere in this group, just from a side angle.

at the center of the park is a small watering hole where there is a salt lick that is evidently like sugar or caffeine or addictive drugs to some animals. we observed several groups of animals compete over time at the salt lick. at one point, these giraffe ganged up and booted out some zebra - one even charged it and tried to kick; a giraffe kicking its front legs is a sight to see, it involves some extremely awkward lumbering and maneuvering the entire body. the whole process of a giraffe running is fascinating with the way its neck awkwardly bobs up and down to help propel it forward.

one of our favorite zebra photos of a mom and baby

one aspect we enjoyed was seeing the different animal groups grazing together; here we have a wildebeest and giraffe

here's that elephant from earlier

the grey mass is in fact two hippos; they really don't move much at all

Pilanesberg is home to a LOT of bird species; we don't know what this is, but it is beautiful and looks like a sapphire when it flies

we are pretty sure this is a waterbuck - sometimes we had trouble identifying the animals, even with huge posters we referred to, but this fits the waterbuck image pretty well

even turtles are seen on safari!

white rhino; the rhino picture in Addo was a black rhino

we know, we took a lot of photos of zebra; how could we not?

springbok; they have the most graceful leap and seemingly flew through the air across the road as they passed us

ginnie decided to take photos of animals crossing the road in front of us; or coming at us or walking ahead. one of them, the one between the giraffes on the right-hand side, being a black mamba snake, widely considered the world's deadliest snake! it spanned the length of the road when we came to it, but the shock of seeing it delayed the reaction in grabbing the camera, so all we have is its last quarter.

the best we could do with this fast-moving aardwolf that Anthony somehow spotted peaking out from behind a rock. he was much better at finding small animals than ginnie!

we saw a lot of wildebeest both days; the striping along their necks helped us identify them

this black-backed jackal was up to something, we passed this area three times and he was there at each. we're thinking he was hunting something in the space behind him because at one point another car was across from us and he seemed frozen with indecision on whether to turn back to avoid us or stay and keep watch on the grass

warthogs hang out near the roads a lot, so we saw many; they are somehow kind of cute in their ugliness. these two are butting heads over something; it ended quickly with them separating and returning to grazing in their spaces