Happy Travel Tuesday everyone! Today we bring it back to Africa and our first morning drive at Kwantu Game Reserve. After a super successful game drive on the evening before, we were happy to head out and see whatever we could. So many people travel to South Africa to see the big five, but the truth is that all the animals are actually genuinely wonderful! On this particular day we saw many beautiful antelope and a few special characters too…
We slept well at the hotel and started the morning with a lovely breakfast. All the food is Halaal at Kwantu so don’t expect any pork sausages or bacon, but there is chicken and all the other lovely breakfasty things that make you feel like you’re on holiday.
After breakfast we jumped into the bakkie and headed out with Alex and Innocent again. We were joined by 3 Dutch girls who were on holiday at Kwantu, just for the day. They are happy for visitors to pop in for a drive, even if they don’t stay at the lodge. Straight out the fence we saw some impala.
We drove down to the nearest water hole and saw a hippo sleeping in the sun. Shortly afterwards, Innocent spotted a baby! The mama had just given birth! But she was laying very still and it wasn’t looking good 🙁 We drove a little closer and still, no moment. Eventually she stood up! YAY! Rather to have a grumpy alive hippo than a new born baby hippo with no mama! Immediately they went into the water. Innocent named the baby hippo Hilda!
With happy cheers, we made our way onto the next section of the game reserve where we found a number of animals having a morning snooze! Including zebra, a silverback jackal and rooi bokkies. I liked the zebras as they had bird hitching a ride – I know this is a symbiotic relationship where the birds eat the ticks off the zebras – food on hooves!
Just before stopping to take in the view across a ravine, we bumped into some cool giraffes. As I said, so many people travel to South Africa to see lions but giraffes and zebras are cool too! The giraffes were totally checking us out, haha!
After the bumpy ride, we stopped for a little walk around at the top of the gorge, taking in the lovely view.
It was getting closer to lunch time so off we went away, running into some elephant blocking the road along the way.
Just before returning to the lodge for lunch, we found a daddy lion sleeping in the sunshine! Just like a big fat thin cat! He was so happy in the sunshine. The reason why I say it’s a daddy lion is because his son soon emerged from the bushes. One second you think you have a snoozy cat, next minute another big lion is coming out of the bushes! You wouldn’t want to jump over fences around here!
While these two lay around in the sunshine, we headed back to the lodge for a lovely lunch. When we arrived, our things had been moved from the Pollard Centre to the more exclusive lodge overlooking the waterhole where we saw Hilda the baby hippo and her mama!
We were all excited for a delicious lunch and everyone tucked in to a lovely roast lamb. Some people didn’t know what gemsquash were – I hope they tried them!
Unfortunately, we were looking into the sun alot so we couldn’t take the perfect pictures, but the experience was beautiful none the less. We also saw eiland, wildebees and waterbuck.
After lunch we went to our new room at the lodge BUT! More about that another time. Thank you for reading this post and if you have any questions about Kwantu, feel free to leave a comment below 🙂