Well, I was actually looking forward to the national park more than I thought I would be. It had started as 'something to do' after abandoning reaching anywhere decent on a motorbike in the time available. But the more I though about it, the more I was looking forward to it, and getting some good photos with the SLR-type camera and some HD video.
As I said previously, I paid for a personal guide for the day: Gert has been a guide for the last 10 years since he left the army as a Colonel. He's 64 and knows his stuff. He picked me up at 6am from the hotel, and was a font of knowledge about the animals and knew where the best chance of seeing each was at different times of the day.
Excellent weather, nice breeze, started out cold (2 degrees) but was soon up to 20 by noon or so.
It's a small park by African standards, but still more than 200 square kms, so it's no 'blair drummond'.
It's quite possible to go all day without seeing a single animal, so I was prepared to just enjoy the scenery... if we saw some animals it would be a bonus.
By the end of the day I'd seen White Rhinos, Springbok, Impala, Kudu, Warthog, Giraffes, Gnus, Monitor lizards, Crocodiles, King fishers, Ganets, Herons, Terrapins, Hippos, Eagles and Elephants!
All in the wild ! no cages, no fences, no nowt.. just 200sq km where they can go and do what they want when they want.
Had to do one quick reverse when an elephant decided it wasn't giving permission for its photo to be taken and started coming straight for the car, but apart from that, no probs.
Having Gert on hand all day was awesome compared to the trucks going by full of tourists and was well worth the cash.
Got some good photos I think, and have stuck em up in an album:
I took some HD video too, but I'll need to edit that before I can post it online. I think it should come out pretty well though: the lighting was good, and I shot most of it on a monopod.
Couldn't find any lions unfortunately, and leopards and cheetahs are notoriously hard to spot. But still an excellent day.
Got back at 6pm to find the hotel mobbed! Manchester United are over in SA on a yearly tour and were playing the local team that day in Pretoria (beat em 4-0). The Manu squad were staying in the hotel too, and there was some big dinner thing on, so it was pretty busy/noisy all night with them all partying.
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