Getting up half an hour later than the previously stated time of 4am was a pleasant surprise as the sun had risen and it felt later than it was. By 6.10am we had driven to the game reserve and were in to start the day's search for animals.
Top of our list of 'animals to see' were the elephants. There are reputed to be 400 elephants in the park, we managed 3 during the course of the day. That's 3 more than last time. They say you should keep a distance of 50m from the elephants as they can be extremely dangerous. (It's always the vegetarians you have to watch!) but the layout of the road next to a watering spot necessitated us going about 20m from a couple of them. This would have been fine if one hadn't been a elephant bull 'in must', and therefore more aggressive. He didn't cause us any trouble though, but after the first menacing look from him we weren't going to hang around too long to find out how quickly he could upturn our toyota yaris!
The view from Hilltop camp gave us a picture of just how massive Hluhluwe-Umfolozi Park is. This is no small safari park. The 2 parks together are about 40miles long and up to 20 miles wide. That's a lot of space for roaming. It's full of forest, rivers and other terrains, which is perfect for animals to hide in. There are many trees for leopards to sit in and watch unsuspecting passing vehicles without ever being spotted. And we were unable to spot any big cats this time, which was the only disappointing thing about the day.
Having been before, we were used to seeing zebras, impala and wildebeest roaming. However an interesting trend seemed to be developing amongst the animals. A single wildebeest stood under a tree near each group of zebras and impala, we saw hardly any in herds.
There were many many babies - impala, baboons and even warthogs (Dad's favourite). As the day progressed it got hotter and hotter and towards mid-afternoon even we would have given anything just to chill out under a tree in the shade at a water hole. (Perhaps then we would have seen some big cat action!)
Watching animals at close quarters brought out lots of unanswered questions though:
1. Why was there only 1 wildebeest with each group of impala/zebra etc? Was he on guard, or in trouble with his mates? Had there been a general falling out of all wildebeest and each one settled with the other creatures for company?
2. One group of giraffes were all standing facing the same direction, seemingly staring at something. We couldn't see what. But then it can't have been a predator or they would have run. Why were they pretending to be 21st century robot giraffes stuck in the same mode? Was there a reason or had we just stumbled upon a game of giraffe 'stuck in the mud'? (usually it's only the warthogs who favour this party game)
3. Zebras like hanging out by standing facing each other and putting their heads over the back of the other one so it looks like they are embracing. What does this behaviour mean? Or are they just extremely friendly animals?
Hmm, lots more questions remain unanswered. I think I need to watch more 'Animal Planet'...
