From The beginning of February until this week i stayed in South africa. So i missed most of the season. In this thread i would like to share my experiences with you all, because these 4 months were unbelieveble. I went to south africa for my study(biology), I stayed in a research camp in the Timbavati private nature park. This is part of the Greater kruger national park.I studied Elephant and impala diets from the end of the wet season untill the dry season, and i looked at what changed. The research camp was in the middle of the Bush, which means that i had to drive 1,5 hours trough the nature reserve to get to the closest small town. We went to the town once a week, to do shopping, and for me look at clutchfans.net (unfortunatly we one had about 1 hour to do shopping and internet, so i couldn't read the bbs)Because it was so remote we had no electricity, and we lived close to the animals. Our research camp did not have a fence around it, so almost every night i woke up because a hyena or lion or buffalo, or rhino or elephant walked past my window. When i looked out my window we could see a waterwhole where the animals could drink, so we saw animals around our camp every day. OUr research meant that we had to drive around in the nature reserve looking for elephant and Impala, and collect their Dung, and then analyse it. Because we drove around in the nature reserve we had some great moments with the animals. Whenever we drove around we had a game ranger with us(a very friendly Shangaan men, who could not speak english and a little bit africaan, so communication was difficult), we could not go farther away from the house then 15 metres, without a bodygaurd with Riffle. We had some great moments with the animals, i will give some examples: At one moment we were driving around looking for dung, and it had just rained when we saw Liontracks(since i wanted to make pictures of tracks) we decided to stop and make a picture of it. My girlfriend (i did the research togheter with her)jumped out of the car, only to jump inmediatly back in, because their where 2 female lions lying next to the road(about 2 metres away from her) luckily the lions got a bigger fright from us then we from them because they ran away(20 metres away) into the bush were they sat and watched us. One night we had a BBQ (we had BBQ alot there), and every time when we had a BBQ the hyena's would come pretty close(just outside the light line), and waiting for us to forget the food. One night we had a chicken left, so one guy said that he would keep it for tomorow, and we went inside to get something to put the chicken in. and when we got back the chicken was gone and a Hyena was running away from our BBQ place. Ofcourse we had a lot of close moments with elephants, what an amazing animals, they are huge, and most of the time they were relaxed, so they could get pretty close to us(like 2 mettres). But when they had young the were less happy with us. Living so close to nature was amazing, we saw a lot of amazing animals, it was an experience that i will never forget. I want to post pictures but does anybody know a good site where i can host the pictures?? Ofcourse i could tell a lot more stories but i do not want this post to be to long(i usually do not read posts that are to long). If anybody has questions about it, let me know. I have one question have i missed any great threads,(like the fight one, or the ride, ride thread)
Sounds awesome Arno. I have stayed at Orpen (and other places in Kruger) in Kruger, which I think is pretty close to Timbavati. It must have been amazing to stay there for 4 months. I'd love to see your pictures.
We went to Kruger for 3 days we went through Orpengate. How long did you stay there? And what did you do there?
I've been many times, I think at least 15. Most of the time I've either stayed at Skukuza or Olifants, and stayed a couple weeks taking a rented SUV around during the day and then take night drives with a ranger. I've also been to places like Londolozi, Mala Mala, and Sabi Sands, but I usually only stay there for a couple days because it costs $$$. Most of my family lives in South Africa so I go there often and spend a month or two there, going to Joburg, Cape Town, and then to Kruger to go on safari.
i would kill to be able to go on a safari... sounds like you had a great time and clearly it was very educational. cant wait to see some photos. oh yeah.... i'm a little jealous too
