To Phinda in the Chuckit Bucket

Back at the house we just transferred the stuff from Karin into Chucky and Ellie climbed into the back and Pete drove while I road shotgun. Obviously there were still no fixed seats in the rear of Chucky so Ellie made herself comfortable at the back on the bench seat right in the middle sitting on top of the rear wheels and as it was now 12:30pm and we had done nothing with our day Pete took off at his normal speedy pace and soon Ellie was being thrown around everywhere all the way back to Mbazwani which is 10km away.
We hit the tarmac roads in Mbazwani and then it was smooth sailing until we hit the speed bumps and without any warning Ellie was launched completely out of the bench seat and almost upto the roof. Pete and I were chuckling away in the front telling her to stop enjoying herself.
Just after 2pm we arrived at the public road road running through Phinda Private Game Reserve and we signed the declaration and then entered the park.
Our first major sighting was a water buffalo standing right in the middle of the road. We had to stop and let him go wherever he wanted as he could do some serious damage to us without warning and luckily he just moved off through the bushes.
Then our next sighting was 4 Male Imyalas doing a display of “dancing”. They do this instead of fighting, and the circle each other, making there hair stand on end, fluffing themselves right up making themselves look bigger. It was quite spectacular.
After that we saw giraffe, warthog, buffalo, wilderbeast and at the end of the road we even saw elephants.
By now it was 4:30pm and nobody had eaten all day so we drove to the Boabab Inn for food. This was supposed to be our breakfast stop but because of the earlier breakdown it was more like dinner. Then we realised that when we went back through Phinda it would be dark. We might be able to see different night animals and started to get excited at the prospect but Pete also thought that at around 7:30pm they close the road through completely.
We finished dinner and headed back for Phinda. The sun had already set and it was now nautical twilight and we could make out the silhouettes of giraffe as we approached the gates.
We signed the disclaimer again and Pete asked what was the latest we could pass through and the security guard said it was now 24hr.
This was a major game changer. Now we could do a night safari, in a big five game park and it was free. We would definitely be coming back.
Entering the park, we were all super, super excited. Ellie and I both felt as though we had gone up a level on African safaris.
Except for where the car headlights were we couldn’t see anything, it was pitch black and I eyes were peeled hoping to see red eyes on the road infront of us.
We passed wilderbeast, then a few impalas and zebras, all of which were far more skittish at night. Then we saw a marsh owl sitting on a branch and he just sat there while we watched it. Then finally on the road ahead we saw red eyes. Pete tried to keep them in his headlights and get there as quickly as he could without scaring it off with all the banging and squeaking of Chucky and fortunately the eyes didn’t move. Then we saw it. A beautiful white tailed mongoose just snuffling around on the road. We got a really good look at him for about 90 seconds before he finally realised we were there and scurried off.
A little further along the road we found a Serval sitting behind a fence, then he stood up and started walking. He looked just like a miniature leopard and this was our first major cat sighting.
By the time we got back to the house we had seen 7 owls, a Serval, a white tailed mongoose, a rabbit, water buffalo, impalas and zebras. It had been a great drive and it had been so early. We decided that tomorrow we would have a late dinner at the Boabab Inn and then do a proper night safari.
We finally arrived back at home at 8:15pm only to find that Millie the cat was nowhere to be found so we spent nearly an hour looking for him before finally giving up and going to bed.
I was worried about him and even though Pete said he wasn’t worried, we knew he was. Then at 10:30pm Pete came down to the house and shouted through the open door that Mille had returned. Now we could all go to sleep.Leggi altro