Pilanesberg Game Reserve

We were staying in Kwa Maritane, a four star time share and resort. We pulled in here at 9:45AM for a coffee and to find out what time we could check in. I was impressed by how nice the resort was. The complex was actually inside the games reserved and there was a "hide" right next to a watering hole as part of the resort. The was quite interesting since you had to walk down a 200m tunnel to get to it and it was sunk into the ground so you would look at the animals eye to eye while they were drinking. Unforetunately, there we didn't see any animals there but there was an elephant that arrived while we were out driving around looking for game in the afternoon.

The weekend of the 18th, Les and Ros took me to Pilanesberg game reserve for the weekend of driving through the games reserve. We woke up at 7:00 AM Saturday morning so we could get out of the house by 7:30AM. The drive North East to Pilanesberg took around 2 hours and we arrived before the heat of the day started to be felt.

After finding out that our room probably wouldn't be ready for a few hours we decided to head out into the games reserve. Once inside, we only needed to drive for 200m before we came face to face with a several Zebra munching away right next to the road. The details of each and every game siting doesn't make for good reading here online so I won't go into the details.



After a few hours and lots of game later we stopped into the Pilanesberg Centre where you can get out of your car and have lunch and a cold beer. The centre looks out onto a open grass land and I was able to see two female lioness' lazing about in the shade of a tree about 1 km into the open grass plain.

After a nice lunch we returned to Kwa Maritane to check in and for Les and I to head out on a nature safari that Ros had kindly organized for us.

The tour went long and I got a much more upclose view of several animals that I hadn't seen in the drive earlier in the day, the most notable of which were the Giraffe, Rhino, and Alligators. The tour when to the early evening past sun down and we did manage to see the eyes and hear a pair of mating Lions before returing to Kwa Maritane in time to catch the Sharks vs Lions rugby match.

Les had gotten so nice pork chops and some boerewors (farmers sausage) which he cooked up on the BBQ which in RSA is known as a Braai. The food was delicious and Les' team, the Sharks, won their match insuring that they made it into the super 14 semi-finals.

The next day we relaxed in the morning after checking out of Kwa Maritane and then drove back into the games park. This time not 2km into the park we ran into a traffic jam as there was a herd of Elephants blocking the road next to the Lengau dam.

Les and Ros have had experience with the elephants in the past and elected to turn around and drive around them rather than wait till they elephants moved on. This turned out to be a good idea since we managed to drive around for an hour to our picnic destination, eat a late lunch and then driving back we encountered the herd on the road again. Thankfully this time they had moved off the road but were still skulking about on either side.

We return to Johannesburg that night to have dinner with Matthew, Les and Ros' son, and his girlfriend. I set up skype so that we could have a chat with Les Senior, Mom (Margaret), Dad, and Holly that night. It was nice to have a good chat with the family at home and for the RSA relatives to connect with the BC clan.

The next morning I packed up and caught the bus to Waterval Boven.