March 10 – Port Elizabeth, South Africa

First thing this morning we headed out through Port Elizabeth...

and along the coast where we saw salt ponds

and a stretch of coastline with many sand dunes.

and the river and estuary system.

Our destination is the Kariega Game Reserve.  When we arrived we were given some juice, we all hit the bathrooms and the boarded our safari vehicles. 

We spent quite a while traveling through the reserve looking for elephants but they were nowhere to be found.  There had been a fair amount of rain recently so they were not at any of the watering holes.  However, the search gave us the opportunity to see a lot of the reserve itself.  It has some pretty hilly area with lots of trees.  

This tour was all about the wild animals.

We saw giraffes right away. 

and some blesbucks.

After transferring to another fenced/gated enclosure we immediately saw herds of impalas,

herds of zebras,

and some warthogs.  You had to look fast.  The warthogs were very shy and headed for the brush just as soon as they heard us coming.

We came across a few lionesses…

and one was working on dinner.  Some poor antelope.  Wasn’t a lot of it left.

Other animals included a lot of wildebeests (including a couple fighting),

ostriches,

a number of kudus, many with their young,

nyala,

bushveld (with a white ring on their rumps),

and buffalo.

The reserve also had several white rhinos.  Most had their horn removed so that they are less desirable to the poachers.

There was also a rather large lake with some hippos.

We even saw some hippo tracks...big feet.

And we saw an absolutely iridescent bird, the Cape Glossy Starling.

We had lunch at the lodge at the reserve.  Near the end of the meal many of the staff members came out and put on a performance for us…very energetically.

The drive back seemed pretty long but we were back soon enough.  This is Port Elizabeth as we were heading out.