Thanda Game Reserve

Thanda game reserve is home to the Big 5.  The Big 5 consist of the elephant, rhino, leopard, water buffalo and lion.  So far, I have seen 3 out of the 5.

We saw Tulani, the elephant on the first day but haven’t seen any other since.  There is a whole herd of them, including babies that I am looking forward to seeing.

We tracked the water buffalo the other day but didn’t see them.  We knew where they were, but they were too far in bush for us to get at via vehicle.

The leopard is very elusive as it can actually get in and out of the game reserve (by jumping over the 15 foot high electric fence).  There are some people who work here that have never, or rarely seen a leopard.  So we are all pretty excited and are keeping our fingers crossed that we’ll be lucky enough to spot one.

We’ve seen most of the lions so far.  But not the two brothers of the south pride.  So hopefully we’ll see them soon.

We have seen several giraffe on 3 different occasions.  They are so huge and lanky and elegant.  They almost look like they move in slow motion.  I like watching them run.  They mostly don’t’ mind us and keep eating away.  We did come across a group of them one day and one of them was pretty inquisitive.  She came over closer and just stood there looking at us.  She was a very pretty one was huge beautiful eyes and long eyelashes.  Another time we found a mamma and her about 2 week old baby.  He was pretty cute to watch.  He’s pretty flexible and coordinated as he could scratch his face with his hind foot, something that an adult wouldn’t be able to do. 

We found rhino only once so far. It was a pair and a baby.  They were pretty happy to just continue eating as we watched and snapped hundreds of photos.  They came fairly close to the truck as they grazed away.  Although some of the people got chatting too loud which made them graze away a little further.  I am planning on learning what the difference is between a white rhino and a black rhino.  Black rhinos are more skidish and tougher to find.  Apparently they dropped a few new rhinos in the reserve next to Thanda (Kings Land) which will eventually be joined with Thanda one day.  The research group got to go and watch it and they said it was pretty cool).

We have seen many other animals on the drive.  Lots of different species of birds (a lot of the photographer guys are big into birds), impala, inyala, kudu, bushbuck, zebra, wildebeest, wart hogs, and some monkeys.  There are still lots of animals to find so many more game drives to come I’m sure!