We were very lucky to spend Christmas and New Year 2023 in South Africa.
We flew from London to Jo’burg on an Airbus A380. We hired a car and drove to Bakubung Bush Lodge in Pilanesberg National Park. When we arrived we saw a family of warthog by the lodge.
On the first day we did an afternoon game drive in a 22 seat open truck with a guide. We saw Elephant, White Rhino, Hippo, Zebra, Giraffe, Lion, Leopard, and various antelopes and birds. In the evening, we went to a “Boma” dinner, with a big campfire, dancers and musicians.
On the second day we saw banded mongoose outside our door. We did a morning drive in our own car. We drove to a viewpoint high on a mountain. We saw giraffe, hippo, kudu, zebra and maribu stork.
We stayed at Bakubung for three days and did five guided game drives. On the final afternoon drive we found four lions walking along the road and followed them for a while. We got a great view of them walking beside us. Afterwards, we got caught in a lion jam as there were lots of vehicles trying to follow them.
We saw Leopard three times. The first time we saw a leopard in the woods and it then crossed the road in front of us. The second time we saw two leopards on a hillside playing with each other. The third time we only saw a small glimpse through the trees.
While in Bakubung we saw crocodiles (adult and baby), tsessebe, African fish eagle,
Bakubung was fun to stay at with a nice swimming pool and an air conditioned room!
On the fourth day, after our morning game drive, we drove to Thakadu River Camp. This is in Madikwe game reserve, up north near the border with Botswana.
Thakadu river camp has a small swimming pool, and a cheeky monkey who kept stealing fruit. We saw elephants playing in the river when we arrived. We stayed in a big tent with a nice bathroom and balcony. Every time the cleaners came they left us some fudge!
On our first game drive we saw Buffalo (our final animal in the Big 5), Rhino with big horns (in Pilanesberg the Rhino are de-horned to stop poachers), Elephant, Giraffe and lots of other animals. We did seven game drives from Thakadu with our guide Tsiamo. Some of the highlights included Cheetah, Spotted Hyena, Black Mamba, Lions, African Wild Dogs, Black Rhino, goshawk, lots of baby animals. On Christmas morning we got caught in a rain storm while on our game drive!
After four nights in Thakadu we drove to Jo’burg airport, and the next day we flew to Cape Town. We are writing this from our final hotel, Wedgeview Country House near Stellenbosch. We have been here for three nights and have three nights left. We have visited an exotic animal rescue centre, which had animals that had been kept as pets but were illegal or had been abandoned, like a 5.5m reticulated python, lemurs, parrots, tarantulas, scorpions, giant tortoise, and a bird with agoraphobia. We visited a wine farm and “Eagle Encounters” where we saw lots of birds of prey that couldn’t be released back into the wild because they were injured or had been raised by humans.
We visited Robben Island, the place where Nelson Mandela was kept prisoner. Our guide was once a prisoner there himself, from 1977 to 1982!
We tried to go up Table Mountain but the winds were too strong. We visited Boulders Beach and saw the penguins that nest there and a penguin empire! We drove around the Cape Peninsular which is very beautiful.
On our last day in South Africa, we went zip-lining in the Hottentots Holland Nature Reserve near Cape Town. The longest zip line was 320 metres long. Fergus and I both did zip lines on our own.
By Archie.
