Hey Everyone!
So the last post was about our Friday afternoons, this one is about the other two days of the weekend. On Saturdays Ian drives to town (Hoedspruit) to do the weekly grocery shopping. The volunteers get the chance to choose if they want to join, spend a few hours strolling around and having lunch there. So that’s what we did. We checked out a few little shops, bought some snacks, had lunch and said goodbye to Sam, one of the other volunteers.
Daktari relies on the volunteers and everyone spends a different amount of time there. Some a week or two, others two to three months or something in the middle. Because of that there is always a coming and going. Lots of Goodbyes but also lots of Hellos.
So just two hours after Sam left us we welcomed a new volunteers at the bus stop while Ian went to the airport to pick two new faces up. The rest of the day we spend relaxing at the pool and getting to know each other better.
After a short night we got picked up early in the morning and drove towards the Kruger National Park. If you looked up where Daktari is located you might know that the game reserve is actually not far away from the famous national park. After a 1,5 hour nap in the car we passed the gates of the park and before even getting to the point where we had to pay the entrance fee we saw two wild leopards just next to the road. The pictures didn’t turn out that great but it was truly amazing to see those creatures so close to you.
The rest of the day we spent with driving around the sandy roads of the national park stopping every time we saw another wild animal. The animal we probably saw most of was the Impala, an antelope species. But also other antelopes like the Kudu or the Steenbock crossed our path.
We also saw the cape buffalo and some wildebeest, also known as Gnus. Did you know that it is really common to find a herd of zebra that is accompanied by one Gnu? The Zebras eat the top part of the gras while Gnu prefer the parts further down. We also saw some really cool and colourful birds and watched the monkey jump through the trees.
My favourite that day was probably the Burchells Zebra. I definitely would not have thought that before, because I had seen Zebras in Zoos before and them being related to the horse I thought it would not be that spectacular. The thing that fascinated me the most were the so-called shadow stripes between the actual black stripes.
We also got really lucky. Two giraffes decided to come really really close to the car. It felt like if you could have leaned out you would have been able to touch them. And look at that cute little baby zebra hiding behind them.
Maybe an hour before we were supposed to leave the national park we still hadn’t seen any elephants and we started to get slightly disappointed but then we hit the jackpot. We found a herd of hundreds of elephants. At first we only saw a few but the further we drove the more we saw walking through the woods. It was truly fascinating!!
Some of the volunteers might have been disappointed because we didn’t see all of the ‘Big 5’. We missed the Rhino but saw Elephants, Lions, Leopards and Buffalos. But I didn’t go into the day with any expectations so I did not really care.
All in all I can say that this day was definitely one of my favourites so far!!
What is your favourite one of these beautiful creatures?
Lena xx
