Pilanesberg National Park

This past weekend we went on an adventure to Pilanesberg National Park. Pilanesberg is a game reserve just three hours from Johannesburg.  Bruce and Melinda Kinghorn organized the trip for us.  Dan and Ruth Ann Stokes, another senior couple who are Family History Specialists, also joined us.  We left Johannesburg on Thursday afternoon and drove to the Marjaniek Guest House, a bed and breakfast, near the town of Rustenburg.  We had hoped to use one of the vans from the Area Office but it didn't work out and so we had to drive two cars.

 

 

After breakfast on Friday morning, we drove to the Pilanesberg Game Park. We did a self-drive around the park for a couple of hours, looking for animals.  It was kind of late in the morning when we got there and there weren't very many animals out.  We did see some elephants a ways off, plus several zebras and giraffes, also not really too close.  We saw a pretty good size herd of wildebeest just laying around eating.  Also some warthogs and impalas.

For lunch we drove to the resort 'Sun City', which is just outside of the park.  We were surprised to see such a huge, beautiful resort out in the middle of nowhere.  Because we weren't staying at the hotel, we couldn't walk everywhere but we stopped and watched all the people playing on the man-made beach.




Sun City walkway with Palace Hotel in background



Beach and wave pool at Sun City

Large Giraffe statues Sun City interior

At 5 o'clock we met our guide and driver, Elvis, and boarded our 25 seat game vehicle.  There were about 20 of us, including some small children.  Shortly after we entered the park, we came across a herd of elephants.  There were big ones and baby ones and I counted 18 all together.  They were walking all around us and didn't seem to care that we were there.

We also saw lots of zebras that surrounded us.  They are such beautiful animals, and each has its own distinctive color variation.

The giraffes weren't quite so close but we saw several of them.

 

 

We were really surprised to see a momma and baby rhino right by the side of the road.  They were disgustingly dirty having just taken a mud bath.  We couldn't get them to turn around at all so we couldn't get any good pictures of them.

Our guide explained to us that although these animals are not in the least bit "tame," they have learned that humans are not a threat to them so they just mostly ignore the cars and game vehicles that drive through the park.



On Saturday we drove to the "Adventures with Elephants" in the town of Bela Bela. Here we had a 'hands on' experience with some elephants.  We learned a lot of interesting facts and enjoyed watching some of their tricks.

Passing the hat

 

Two little girls from the audience stood in front of an elephant and the trainer repeated their names two times.  The girls changed places and when the trainer called out a name, the elephant pointed to the right one.  An elephant can remember names and correctly match them for 18 months.  They can also remember the scent from an article of clothing and match it with the owner after that long also.

 

 

 

 

 

Susan also got kissed by an elephant but we missed the picture of that but she said it was wet and very smelly!