Day 7 - Wildlife nature

"Good morning twins" - said Mpho when waking us up at 6am in our tent with fresh tea. The night had been again very cold, but the blankets of the bed kept us warm, as well as our "bush baby". This night we actually had a very good sleep, because we got more and more used to the sound of wildlife around our tent and didn't hear any roaring lion next to our heads. Both Lara and I are morning persons, so we didn't have much trouble jumping out of the bed. Especially not when you know another exciting horse riding trip is waiting for us. We got dressed, put on the boots and off we went for a lovely breakfast at 6.30am with the whole group.

Today we would do only a morning ride, because the afternoon we're having an amazing jeep safari. The focus would be more on the nature of Mashatu's Game Reserve, such as the trees and river systems.

One of the most incredible trees of this area is the Mashatu tree, or also known as the Nyala-berry tree. The trees vary ages from 300 to 600 years old (!) and reach a height of 30 metres. Quite impressive trees with beautiful canopies and thick trunks create the perfect home to many animals. The Mashatu trees are mostly found close to river banks, creating even higher chance to spot animals when searching for these trees.

We also saw some Baobab trees, also known as "the upside-down tree “, because their canopies look like roots spread out towards the sky. The trees can also age up to several 100 years.

Very often we were asking Mpho how animals could survive in this dry arid area, but he explained us it's just for several months in dry winter. As soon as spring comes up, just in one night the river banks can be filled up and the whole area starts to flood with water. Even during our rides in winter time, we saw some left-over mud baths, so clearly still some water was still left in this area.Read more