The Chance of a Lifetime...

Hippos crocs and elephants...

Sunday afternoon the shit hit the fan within our group and there was a lot going on which disrupted the trip. We decided to stay an extra night in JoBerg and find a new safari to go on. Went out to a pretty quiet dinner accross from the hotel and had an early night. Sunday dad phoned and woke me up at 9.30 to figure out what we were going to do...I made a lot of phone calls and at 10.30 woke Sara Laura and Dave up, told them to be dressed, packed and in the lobby in 15mins. We piled into 2 cabs and drove 35mins to the private part of the airport. From there we caught our original 11.50 flight to Singita Game Reserve in Kruger National Park. The plane was tiny, maybe 20 seats!! The flight only took about 25mins and we landed on this tiny airstrip in the middler of nowhere. There our guide, Andre picked the 6 of us up and drove us to Boulders Lodge where we were greeted and introduced to Differnce who is our butler :). This place is absolutely unbelievable, check it out www.singita.co.za each 'cabin' is ridiculously nice!! And has its own pool, huge shower surrounded by sliding glass doors to the outside deck and surrounding African wilderness!! There's and outdoor shower which can't be seen by anyone else but it feels like you're in the wilderness. Looking from the deck there is a river where animals drink and hang out. The babboons run around everywhere- even drink out of our pool!! The only aninals that cannot come near the lodge are elephants and giraffes, as it is surruounded by an electric fence which is about 10ft off the ground- allowing lions leopards etc to come in. This means that at night and in the mornings we are escorted to and from our cabins in case of animals!
Yesterday at 4pm we went out on our first drive, just the 6 of us, Andre the driver/guide/sarcastic joker, and Barney the tracker...he seems to have a 6th sense of where animals are! So we went out and saw lots of Impala everywhere!! And a Klipspringer which is like a little deer. But our first cool animal was a giraffe!! 2 females just chillin eatin some leaves :). Then we saw 3 hippos chillin in a stream, we didn't really see much b/c they were submerged but they were cute.. Next we found a herd of elephants with some babies, soooo cute. Its really surprising how quietly they walk!! One of the babys tried to show off, he lifted his headn stuck out his trunk and his tail and pranced past us, then got scared and started yelling haha, he was cute. We were on our way back through the stream and I spotted a crocodile tanning on the bank in some reeds, Andre and Barney didn't believe me, we reversed, it was there and I subsequently won a shot at dinner later :). We stopped to look at tracks and stretch our legs, next thing we knew Andre was pulling coolers out and a ledge-like table on the front of the Land Rover, there were sodas waters beer alcohol, meat balls, olives billbong (like jerky) pretzels....crazy!! Haha it was pretty amusing and delicious. We also got into a poop war with elephant poop hahaha gross. Then Andre offered us 'berries' which only the gullable ones took- Laura, Sara, Mum- b/c they were actually giraffe poop pellets. As it got dark we started to head in and on the way Barney spotted a white faced owl in a tree, it was super cute!!
We arrived back at the lodge and decided a time to eat dinner, went back to our cabins and got changed...no showering outside b/c it was dark and we might get eaten!!
Andre joined us for dinner which started with a shot of something minty and Amarula Cream which is like Baileys...yummy. Dinner was delicious and all inclusive!! I tried crocdile meat, it was pretty good but I stuck with lamb and chicken. We were given a mint melon pallate cleansor and Laura took it like a shot and soon regretted it! Hahah too funny. We were at dinner the longest and stuck around for drinks after...good times and Andre is super cool. On the way back to our cabin we saw a little frog!
This morning we got woken up at 5am (ouch) but none of us really slept last night- not sure why, possibly the sliding glass doors that are the wall to the ouitside...the moon was really bright and the wild is right on the other side!!
We ate a snack and some fresh juice and went on our way. First animal today was lions!! 2 2 year olds, a male and female! Very cute and cuddly haha right. There was also a hyena hanging around, he was creepy and definitely ugly!! Then we went looking for a female leopard but found her cub first sitting on a rock waiting for mum to bring breakfast back. Then we found mum after plowing through trees and bushes! She was beautiful!! Then we saw more giraffes a mum dad and 3 babies (frm different mums). Then we saw a group of zebras which were crazy cool, the stripes on their faces are amazing!! Next we found some big deeer type things, maybe Caracal? I can't remember their names but they had huge curly horns. Barney then spotted an elephant and some rhinos so we went to find them... There were 2 mums and 2 babies one about 3months and one 2 years old. These were White Rhinos but not whjite in colour, just b/c of thelir wide mouths (different language translation or something). On the road back Andre dodged a tiny tortoise, maybe and inach and a half accross, super cute, so we moved it out of the road so it wouldn't get run over! We then saw a couple of Warthogs which are pretty ugly. There were some eagles flying around and some other birds- yellow billed hornbill like Zazu from the Lion King (but he was orange billed). Oh, we saw mongoose too and Squirrels!! :)
Came back for breakfast and there were tons of babboons hanging around wanting food, they're pretty crazy and not cute! When I came back to tjh cabin there were 2 on our deck by the pool!! Crazy little buggers!!
So now we are just chillin before lunch and another drive. I coukd live here, this place is unbelievable!! Check it out online for real!!

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posted by Kirby @ 2:21 AM