December 18, 2024
Hluhluwe-Imfolozi (say that three times fast! Pam can’t even get it out once!!) Game Reserve is one of the oldest reserves in Africa. It was opened in 1895 and covers over 230,000 acres. Characterized by rolling hills and open spaces, its original focus was the saving of the white rhino. At the time the park was opened the white rhino was nearly extinct; there were only 60 known to be remaining in 1895. Today the park is home to a much greater, but unknown number of both white and black rhinos (the park monitors all of its populations, but because of poachers they do not make the number of rhinos publicly available) and is home to all of the “Big Five” (elephant, buffalo, leopard, lion and rhino), as well as the Nyala antelope, and a variety of other animals and birds. We saw three of the Big Five and lots of other “bonus”critters.
We traveled the same route to get to the park today as we did to get to the Village yesterday. When we arrived, we transferred from our bus to an open-air vehicle. They are definitely not designed for short people. It took a village to get Aunt Dori in and out!
Wandaboy (Pam is SURE this is not the correct spelling of his name, but this is the pronunciation of it) was our guide. He has no formal training to be a guide; he grew up very poor in a shanty community. He loves to read, and his wildlife education is largely self-taught. In addition to working as a guide in the park he voluntarily teaches school children about their natural environment, including which snakes are poisonous and how to treat a snake bite. He commented on how frustrating it is to him that so many of his fellow citizens suffer completely avoidable deaths because they don’t know how to treat a snakebite.
Our first sitings were of South African warthogs. They are everywhere in the park.
It’s the beginning of summer here in Africa and the animals are having their babies. Most of the animals we say today had youngsters between 2 weeks and 2 months old. As we got a little further into the park, we met two male Nyala antelope jousting in a field. Wandaboy explained that if they were seriously fighting the hairs along their back would be standing straight up and they would not stop for a jeep full of spectators. Nearby was a herd of females and their young.
Notice the markings on the rear of the females? These antelope are known as the “fast food” of the park, because the markings on their behind looks like an “M” (McDonald’s), and they serve an instant food source for almost all of the predators.
Later on, we also saw a Sable antelope. Africa has more antelope than any other continent, a total of eighteen different species in all.
It didn’t take long to come across our first elephant. There were many more as the day wore on.
Not impressed? Check out the size of this elephant as compared to the vehicles we were riding in.
They are the largest mammals on earth. They can grow to be thirteen feet tall at the shoulder and weigh as much as 14,000 pounds. We saw one take an entire tree down in a matter of minutes (couldn’t get a photo – it literally happended too fast). They eat every part of the tree – roots, bark, branches – and yet because of what is considered to be a very inefficient digestive system they are able to consume only 44 percent of the nutrients.
We saw buffalo…
And we saw what happens when an elephant decides to visit the buffalo’s watering hole…this river bed was full of buffalo, but as the elephants began wandering through the buffalo went scampering up the hill. “No, no, really, it’s okay! You can have it.”
We were fortunate to see the elusive white rhino (which isn’t white at all, by the way; it’s just lighter than it’s black rhino counterpart).
There were zebras, of course…
There were no sightings of leopards or lions, but we did see other creatures, like this Nile Monitor.
And these incredibly industrious dung beetles…
The Telecoprid species of beetles work together to break off chunks of dung and roll it into a ball which can weigh up to 50 times more than themselves. These balls are procured from a dung site to be eaten or buried elsewhere to avoid competition with other species. The female will sit on top of the ball and lay her eggs within, while the male pushes it with his hind legs. Pretty impressive!
As we were wrapping up our game drive we came across these cuties (baboons) in some trees along the road.
We were disappointed not to see any lions or giraffes, but we’ve been told by many people we’re almost certain to see them when we do our game drives in the Johannesburg area. And we still got to see lots of wildlife in a beautiful setting. It was a day well spent!
Gotta love the Fire Trees around here!
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