Long before boarding the Queen Victoria, we booked three tours, all in South Africa. The first was a safari outside Port Elizabeth. After clearing immigration, we boarded a bus for a one and a half hour ride to the Kwantu Wild Game Preserve. After a break and some refreshment, we were assigned to an all-terrain vehicle and a guide/driver.
Our guide, Innocence, explained that Kwantu was an animal rehabilitation facility. So, we would begin by visiting some penned areas that held animals that were being treated for injuries or illness or who are disabled and, therefore, cannot be released back into the wild. We were surprised that these included several tigers. Innocence told us that an injured female was brought to Kwantu for treatment from India. She was pregnant. The mother will never return to the wild but her cubs will return to India when they are fully grown (5 years old). Also included in this section were desert lions from Namibia, a pride of local lions and a cheetah.
As we proceeded through the gates into the preserve, we came upon mixed herds of eland, zebra And a gnu.
Then we came to some African Ibises.
Innocence pointed up the hill and said, “Look there’s a buffalo laying in the shade of a bush up there.” We looked but only saw a few bushes. Innocence fired up our transport, drove up the hill and around some bushes. There lay a magnificent Cape Buffalo bull.
As we came down off the hill, Innocence said that he saw a lion over by the boundary fence. So, he took off on an indirect path toward the boundary. When we arrived, we could see a female lion crouching against the bushes along the boundary fence. Innocence told us that she was pregnant and that he suspected that she was stalking a zebra colt about 200 yards away across a dry creek. As we watched, she moved stealthily across an open field and the dry creek bed to crouch in a second line of bushes about 100 yards closer to the young zebra. As we sat and watched the lioness ready to pounce, the zebra herd changed direction heading up hill and denying the lioness her lunch.
From the disappointed lioness, we headed into a bush covered valley. As we entered the valley, Innocence stopped the truck, shouted, “Elephant!” and pointed up the hill to the left. Indeed there was a large bull elephant charging up the hill.
Innocence said we might go look for the bull later but he was pretty sure that we would find more elephants down in the valley. So, we continued down the dirt path into the bush and tree covered valley. Shortly, we heard thrashing about in the bush and then we saw two elephants. They looked like a mother and child pair. The larger animal headed further into the bush away from us but the smaller, “child”, calmly continued pulling limbs from bushes and chewing away.
Next, Innocence reported that a pair of rhinoceroses had been sighted atop one of the hills above our position in the valley. Once again he fired up the truck and sped off … sometimes on a dirt road, sometimes on a dirt path or track and sometimes along no discernible path or track at all. Shortly we came to an open plain at the top of the valley and there were two African Black Rhinos. Innocence explained that you can distinguish between black and white rhinos by the shape of the lower jaw (a black rhino’s jaw is ‘square’) and by certain behavioral traits (e.g. the black rhino leads its young and the white ‘pushes’ its young in front like a mother with a pram). Innocence also pointed out that the rhino was the most endangered species in Africa. Poachers have taken to using helicopters to fly into the game preserves, spot rhinos, kill them, cut off their horns and leave the dead rhino to rot! All before the game wardens can respond! Innocence wouldn’t say what measures the preserve was taking to protect the rhinos other than saying that they periodically filed down the rhinos’ horns. However, we did hear that preserves where assigning armed guards to shepherd and protect rhinos.
Afterward, we drove around and through herds of eland,
Gnus and
Spring Bok.
We drove passed a couple of water holes with no animal sightings but, at the third, Innocence pulled to a halt. We noticed there was something in the water. Then we realized it was a pair of hippopotamuses! Again, a mother and child. Innocence talked about how dangerous the hippo can be as we watched these two bath and play in the pool.
While we were watching the hippos cavort, we noticed some movement over a hill on the right side of the water hole. It was a giraffe! We quickly rolled to the other side of the hill to discover that it was two giraffes!
As we were taking pictures of the giraffes, we noted that the hippos had walked (hippos do not swim) across the pond to regain their audience …
Eventually, we took off across the preserve. Passed zebras, gnus and spring boks … headed for the preserve gates. We had spent an eventful day bouncing along dirt paths, passed termite hills and enjoying the animals in the wild. Now it was time for a quick meal and our bus ride home.
First we needed say goodbye and thanks to Innocence!
And enjoy a brief program of native dance …
