Safari!

Our goal was to find the "Big Five" (Lion, Elephant, Leopard, Water Buffalo, and Rhino). We arrived at the Ivory Tree Lodge in awe at how beautiful the place was! After a delicious lunch we were told tea time was at 3:30pm and our evening game drive departed at 4:00pm.  Thankfully the Lodge had babysitting services, so the kids hung with Alice in our room while we went out for an amazing adventure.

Pilanesburg National Park was beautiful! Just driving around in our jeep soaking up the beautiful scenery was enjoyable in itself.  We saw impala, kudu, springbok, steenbok, hippos, guinea fowl, wart hogs, giraffes, zebras, wildebeests, and more. (Many of these animals we had eaten at Carnivore a few weeks before!) But it was most exciting to look for the Big Five.  There were lots of elephants and a few times, we had one extremely close to our jeep so we were nervous and had to remain very quiet!  It was amazing to watch the elephants and we especially loved seeing the one month old babies.  Giraffes were my favorite since they are so tall and incredible to look at!  We would see large groups of giraffes very close to our jeep.  We saw a few rhinos, but not too close to us. Water buffalo and leopards are very difficult to find in this park.  Our guide said he had only seen each of them once before, so we doubted whether we would be able to spot any, but we did!  The buffalo were too far away to get any good pictures and we only saw the leopard for about 20 seconds and I wanted to soak it in, so no picture of him either.  But he was right by the road, amazing to look at, and looked right at our face!

Everyone had their own cottage!

 Kudu

 Me with a zebra in the road

 At the watering hole viewing hippos and monkeys!  Our guides also set up snacks (dried mango and biltong, which is dried meat) for us during this stop as we waited for it to turn dark.  After dark, he used a spot light to see the night animals. When we returned from our safari, we were greeted at the lodge with warm drinks and a fire as we waited for our dinner.  

 The next morning, we were awoken at 5:30am to catch our 6:00am game drive.  I loved getting up early and watching the sun rise as we drove through the park.  These pictures were taken during our morning stop where we had gorgeous views of the mountains.  The guides set up hot tea and rusks for our snack.

 Wildebeests

 Zebra

 Wildebeests

 Warthogs

 Chad and the warthogs

 Chad and the kids playing outside at the lodge

 Evie and I at our lodge

At 11:00am the kids were able to participate in a bush bumble with us, which ended up being a game drive just like ours, only a little shorter and later in the day so it was much warmer. They LOVED it and did a great job remaining very quiet when the elephant herd passed right in front of our car! Every other time William saw animals he said "Look"! So I was so relieved he stayed quiet for the elephants.

 Giraffe

 Mama elephant and her baby!

 More elephants

 Marone, our safari guide

Rhino

 Lion family eating a giraffe

 Giraffe

 Sweet siblings...Evie has one hand holding her brother's and the other hand holding binoculars!

I also really loved the three hour drive to and from Pilanesburg.  It was so interesting to see the African landscape and people in their villages as we drove.  It is so completely different than the way we live, so it was amazing to see the variety of people and places that God has created.  And of course, driving through the park and seeing all the various kinds of incredible animals was very worshipful as well. Chad and I would agree that this safari was one of our most favorite experiences we have ever had!