My First Safari

Thought I would start off with some pictures this time as we headed out on our Safari. We are doing two Safaris a day. One at 5.30am and the other at 4.30pm. Yes you read that correctly 5.30am. Ouch. We go on Land Rovers (picture above). Like Mummys Car but without the roof, the seatbelts and unfortunately the seat back DVD player.

The temperature can get a bit chilly so dad has a back that has extra sweatshirts, wooly hats, scarfes and gloves. We have the camera and choose the middle seats in the car. Our guide Johan is ready and off we go. This is exciting. We head down the steep slope from the lodge and hit the bush tracks searching for big game. We have a tracker on our car also. He sits on the seat that is on the bonnet (see pic). He looks for tracks in the ground. They also have a big gun on the car. I don't want to touch that. Johan says it is for safety and only he gets to hold it.

Within 5 minutes of departing we see our tracker whirl his hanbd above his head and shout out instructions. Soon we turn into the bush and go off road and hear rustling noises in the bush up ahead. Then we see my Daddys favorite animal - Elephants. They came right up to the side of the car. It was amazing. They are massive. The ranger told us all about them. He said there is a mummy elephant that rules the whole group and that the males are often sent off from the group. It takes 22 months for a mummy elephant to have a baby. And another amazing thing is the ears of an African elephant are the same shape as the continent of Africa.

Daddy asked why the Indian elephant had smaller ears. The tracker thinks that the jungle in India is far more dense and bigger ears would get snagged, whereas in Africa the bush is less dense.

Elephants spend about 22 hours a day eating and their digestive system is so poor they only digest 45% of what they eat. No wonder there is so much elephant poo everywhere.

It was very exciting to see them.

To be continued