Game drive at Bucklands

During our wonderful stay at Bucklands Private Game Reserve during the Mini vs Maxi trip we had the opportunity to go on two game drives.  The first one starting at about 15:00ish (sorry, but I just can't remember the exact time) in the afternoon with the other one early the next morning.  As we were the only ones at the lodge for the night we had a game drive vehicle all to ourselves.  Our ranger, Werner, must be one of the most knowledgeable ranger I've ever had on a game drive.  He also literally went out his way to find us as much as possible during the drive and when there was nothing to see he was telling us about trees, plants and the history of the area.  Some of the game we saw on the drive included:

Blesbuck

Burchell's Zebra

Ostrich

Kudu

Giraffe

And Homo sapiens, also known as the visitors staying at the Luxury Tented Camp.

Kudu silhouette

Camp site Bushbuck

Camping at Mahai in the Drakenberg we noticed a couple of Bushbuck roaming through the campsite.  They weren't tame, but quite clearly used to and comfortable around the campers.  The honorary rangers told us that its a female with her young that often spend time around the campsite and when the young one was a baby she sometimes left here close to the ranger's building while going off on her own.  We spotted the male outside the camp area next to the road one day and apparently he doesn't venture in between the tents like the female does.

The one afternoon I was sitting on the grass with Drama Princess eating apples when the female slowly came closer.  Although she was very careful, she came right up to us and even ate apple from our hands.  At first Drama Princess was very nervous and unsure, but after seeing that there was no danger she actually fed the antelope as well.

Female Njala

Njala (Tragelaphus angasii) are very shy antelope and normally hide in the bush. On my last visit to Seaview Game and Lion Park this female Njala was standing next to the road on the way out and allowed me to stop to take a couple of pics before she quietly disappeared into the bush again.

Bikini bottoms

The Red Hartebeest is usually found in grasslands and savanna in the drier central parts of South Africa. They are grazers which means that you would find them in the open grazing on grass, although they are known to browse as well when grass is in short supply. The Red Hartebeest is said to be the second fastest antelope in Africa after the Tsessebe.

The name Red Hartebeest comes from the fact the

Red: They are reddish in colour;

Harte: When you look at them straight on from the front, their horns form the shape of a heart; and

Beest: Either from the fact that they are beasts or because they graze like cattle and in Afrikaans (or Dutch) a cow is a bees.

Now why call the post Bikini Bottoms? Well that is what the game rangers like to call them. When they walk away from you and you look carefully, it looks like they all have white bikini bottoms on.

Impala

We took the kids to Kragga Kamma Game Park on the outskirts of Port Elizabeth today. I used to go there quite often when I was a tourist guide, but hasn't been for nearly two years. Over the next few days I'll show some of the pictures I took and also give some information on the animals we saw.

The impala is one of the dominant savanna antelope species. They are very unique in that they are both grazers and browsers. The Afrikaans name for them is "Rooibok" which refers to their red/orange colour. They have a black "M" on their backside prompting people to call them the McDonald's Buck - fast food of the veld.

Impala are normally found in either breeding herds, consisting of females and one single dominant male, or bachelor herds consisting of males only. Males always have horns while females don't.

For more information on Impala, check out Wikipedia.