Friday 13 March 2009

Friday Foto Finish Fiesta - Kruger National Park

As promised yesterday, today is all about our short visit to the world famous Kruger National Park - a wilderness area the size of Belgium. I have been to the park so many times - my family took me from a very early age and I kept it up until the month before I got pregnant with The Little Miss. We have not been back until last weekend due to the fact that it is a classified Malaria area. But this year is a very low incidence year and we deemed it safe enough to let our little girl go with me. Off course, we take all possible precautions.

I took the 4 smallest girls, A, cousin Jana, her friend Alida and cousin Carla with me. On our half hour drive to the gate (the gate at Komatipoort is currently closed due to flooding) the girls listened to the Mama Mia soundtrack and was singing top of their voices, and off course I joined in - lovely of let go of all convention and just sing! It is exceptionally green and pretty after a good rain season.
The 3 little ones game viewing ( you are allowed to take off seat belts, car seats etc - top speed in the reserve is about 20 miles/hour)

We were really so very very lucky - in 3 hours we saw 3 of the big 5: The big 5 is the 5 most coveted animals to see in a game reserve and can be seen in South Africa, Botswana, Kenya and Tanzania. It originally referred to the 5 most dangerous animals to hunt on foot and are: Lion, Elephant, Rhino, Leopard and Buffalo. Often theses days guides talk about the big 7 which include the cheetah and Wild dogs.


3 Lions (2 pictures here) close enough for A to see well - that were sleeping next to a giraffe carcass. There were probably more lions as you can often not see all in the dense grass.

A white rhino really close right on the park boundary.

An elephant - also close enough for my 4 year old to see.
We also saw what we refer to as the usual stuff - giraffe, zebra, impala, monkeys, ground squirrels, banded mongoose and lovely birds, amongst them a fish eagle.
After 3 hours we stopped at a rest camp for ice-cream and turned back, leaving the park about half an hour later.
The 4 dancing queens.
It was a great day and so special that I could take my little princess.

For some more special photographic moments head over to Carrie's for more 4XF

17 comments:

  1. Beautiful beautiful pictures. Love the pics of the girls. Our wild life refuges here are boring compared to yalls. The pic of all of the wild animals were awesome!

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  2. How cool is that!! You have had a beautiful group of girls with you! Did you have to beat away all the little boys with sticks?? or the scary animals?? Hehehe...have a great weekend!

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  3. Wow! How lucky were you to capture all those animals in pictures! Gorgeous:-)

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  4. How fun! And what great shots, that would have to be such a different feeling than going to a zoo!

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  5. Sounds like a ton of fun...that rhino scared me just lookin at the pic!

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  6. WOW! I only get to see those animals in a zoo. You are very lucky.

    And I'm listening to the ABBA CD while reading this. :-)

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  7. Your pictures are beautiful. They make me long to see your country. I had forgotten about

    Malaria...such a scary virus. I have friend, that while im Africa, contracted it. He had a hard time having kids after that.

    Have a great weekend!

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  8. wow! great pictures. looks like a great place to go.

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  9. Wow! You were close to those animals! What great photos!!!

    PS - I was not able to find you on Facebook - feel free to look me up - Missy Neal Gurley

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  10. Wow!!! That is just amazing!!!!

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  11. Wow! That is beyond incredible! And I cannot even fathom monkeys and giraffes being the "usual stuff"! The only thing we have of the Big 5 in our "zoo" (it takes only about 45 minutes to see the entire thing)is a leopard. But it is the snow leopard from Siberia.

    The other thing I can't fathom is having "classiied malaria areas". We have a TON of mosquitos here in Alaska (moreso in the interior), but we don't have to worry about malaria yet. One of my co-workers went to Kenya on vacation last year and had to get a lot of inaculations prior to the trip.

    Thanks for the great photo blog post! Enjoy the weekend.

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  12. AWWW...alll the girls are soo lovely!!

    The animal pictures are fantastic!!!

    Happy Friday!

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  13. How cool! I watch a live webcam called Africam that is on a reserve bordering Kruger. I've seen all the of the Big 7, as you refer to them on that camera. It's fascinating. I'd love to get to visit Africa someday.

    Thanks for your comment the other day on the Global Food Crisis post - we made it to 127 comments!

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  14. wow...that sounds amazing! what a cool experience!

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  15. Ohhh, I'm so sorry to say that I'm terribly envious! I miss the (southern) African bush soooo much!

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  16. What an AWESOME experience!!!! Those pics are great! I'm glad you got to take your daughter as well....what a cool thing to do! I'm so jealous!!!

    Thanks for stopping by on Friday. I'll have to keep tabs on your blog and see what other cool stuff you get to do in S. Africa!

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