Tremendous Thornybush

 Day 5

We travelled to Thronybush Game Preserve near Hoedspruit, SA. I could write a lot of details about this amazing day, but I will only share two sets of pictures: (1) Kamara house where we are staying and (2) the afternoon/evening safari.

First - Kamara House

Get out your thesaurus and look up amazing, unbelievable, striking, fantastic ... and write down every synonym you find. When you are done, you will be half way to describing this villa where we are staying.

   

  

  

   

 

  

Second - Safari

Here is a list of the animals we saw over a 3 hours late afternoon/early evening ride through the preserve (in alphabetical order): buffalo (of the water variety), crocodiles, elephants, giraffes, impala (lots), jackals (rarely seen), lions, stripped mongoose, monkeys (baboons and others), pumba (warthog), steinbok (a type of antelope), zebra (remember - it's a short 'e' sound).

I will relate one story. As the sun was setting, and it was getting pretty dark, the lions come out to hunt. We came upon a pride of lions - several females and two males - that were in the hunt. The females take the lead and they were 30 yards in front of us, but paying no attention to us - focused on hearing and smelling some prey in the distant bush. The males were waiting in back-up for when the females flush out the prey. There was a male about 5 yards in front of our jeep. The second males came from behind our jeep with such stealth that we did not even hear it, and suddenly, there it was less than 10 feet from the side of our jeep. [Side note: they are completely unafraid of us or anything for that matter, and they do not see us as food, so they ignore us - we are completely inconsequential to them unless ... we get in the way of their hunt.] It stood next to us for quite some time, listening with ears perked up for a telltale sign that the ladies had found something. It stalked ever so slowly and without making a sound up past the other male. Eventually they both proceeded into the bush where the females had disappeared. We do not know the outcome of the hunt.