Having failed miserably to find any big cats (lions, leopards, cheetahs) on our previous trip to Hluhluwe-Umfolozi Game reserve, we decided to take the leisurely route and booked a tour to go back. We cleverly booked when no one else wanted to go and thus had our very own private game drive in a big land rover game watching vehicle all to ourselves. The driver even collected us from our front door and drove us all the way to the park, around it and back again. It was certainly an experience and we got to visit areas of the park inaccessible to an ordinary car.
Sadly, still no more cats but then we did see several more elephant and lots of baby animals: zebra, wildebeest, giraffe, nyala, rhino, warthog….
Did you know that 60% of the cute baby warthogs don’t make it to their first birthday, being choice delicacies for a little snack for passing jackals, cheetahs etc….
…And that baby wildebeest are born light brown, the same colour as lions, so that they blend in easier and are protected from an attack. Fascinating stuff.
Visiting a game reserve is a bit like life, in my opinion. You arrive filled with hope and expectation of what you might see and this turns to perseverance after about 2 hours of fruitless searching. You force yourself to rejoice with others at their tales of how many lions they’ve seen, and photos of fresh kills by a passing leopard, whilst inwardly wishing that it could be the other way round and that you’d be recalling these moments. You develop a continuing ‘gritted-teethness’ about driving round, scanning every single tree and plant in the hope of a glimpse of something big and furry and you rejoice over even the smallest of warthog babies. There are the occasional vultures waiting to take you out if they could, but you sail past them in your vehicle. Even on the way back to the exit you refuse to give up hope and in vain continue to stare around for anything that moves. In fact, long after you’ve left the game reserve, you find yourself in ‘game spotting pose’, eager scanning the horizon for the odd elephant or rhino…
Happy days!
