Deane's 2009 Motorcycle Trip
South Africa
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Deane's 2009 Motorcycle Trip South Africa |
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Nov 10, - Kruger National Park Day 4 - (0) km (0) Miles |
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This was our day to go into Kruger National Park, a part of the tour that I had especially wanted to do. We got up at 4:00 AM, to make a 5:00AM start!! Darryl had arranged a Park tour service and we left on a modified pickup truck which pickup bed alone and had a welded frame for seating. The seats were stair-stepped up so the people in the front and in the back had about equal visibility. The driver said that he couldn't guarantee that we would see various animals, except for Impala, and we saw lots of Impala, little graceful grazers, with beautiful coloring and interesting horns on the males - none on the females. What I wanted to see most was Elephants. And the elephants didn't disappoint us! We saw first a "teen-age" Elephant , very close to our vehicle and he posed for us. Then larger groups of 3 to 4, with the mother and baby protected by aunts, sisters and so on. The elephant sightings were wonderful. As we continued on, we saw our first Giraffe. How beautiful they are, with those long necks that they use to browse very high in the trees. We saw several in a relatively small area. Then there were Wart Hogs, Monkeys, Baboons, Hippos, and others. So today's report here was to be mainly photos of the wild animals. Unfortunately, just at the end of the wild animal tour, I lost my camera. Here's the way it happened. We were just coming back to our motel in the partially open vehicle, when the bus driver slowed very nicely at two speed humps, but then sped up and got distracted and hit the third speed hump going very fast. The result was that I was bounced up so far and so hard that my head hit the roll bars over the seating area very hard. This also happened to one other fellow in our group, Andy. He got a cut nose and forehead, from hitting his glasses, and he's now sporting a black eye. I think that I was distracted enough with the head banging that my camera bounced out of the seat and I forgot about it . Any way, I lost all of the photos, along with the camera. for that special day. However, I was able to recover, by copying photos from someone else's camera. Here they are. The "Teenager" Elephant, who just stood and looked us, and then just ambled off.
Impala - Everywhere.
Giraffe - Beautiful!
Lion - a young male - Look at his nice growing mane, and his nice face -no scars from territorial fights yet. His camouflage is very good.
More Elephants.
All in all, a wonderful day!! |
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