We were lucky with the weather on our first game drive, but unfortunately that luck wasn’t to hold. The rest of our game drives were cloudy, cold, even rainy affairs.

We did however see some wildlife, like these Vervet Monkeys seeking shelter in the forest.

Or a pair of teenage lions having a snooze in a secluded spot.

Some times, the scenes we encountered were entirely unexpected. Like a lone giraffe, wandering in the mist.

Now, on to some of my favourite, more elegant mammals.

We saw a few zebras on the reserve.

Their stripes made them instantly striking and elegant.

And one always has time for a giraffe.

Or two.

Or three!

Their long tongues and necks enable them to access leaves on all sorts of trees and bushes.

Including this spiny acacia bush. Wouldn’t want to get caught on this one…

We continued on our safari and found a few more typically African mammals. We start with a very ugly one, the warthog!

With their tusks, mullet and facial hair, could they actually be trend-setters for the 21st Century? These little ones were playing/fighting, and I found them almost cute.

At the waterhole, we were closely watched by a herd of hippos. It’s rather startling to think that behind each pair of eyes was a 1,500kg animal.

And moving on to bovines, we encountered a pair of Cape Buffalos grazing. We kept well away from those horns!

It’s safari time! Let’s jump into the convertible Land Cruiser and see what we can find.

Close to the camp, we found more female Nyalas.

And not too far away was a male Nyala. He looks very different from the females.

Africa of course is full of different antelope species. A species we saw a lot of in the reserve was the impala. You can recognise them by the M-shaped marking on their bottom! We saw some males.

And lots and lots of females.

Another common species was the blesbok – they have distinctive white faces and white bottoms. Our ranger reckons that means ‘eat me’ to predators.

These guys get very territorial, and this herd’s territory is the reserve airstrip!

At a game reserve, your waking hours are structured around your dawn and dusk game drives, each being 3 hours in length. That’s 6 hours a day to find animals! Our first dusk drive was a good one, and we got a lovely view of the sunset.