Kariega

I know it has been awhile since my last real post... the Holidays have been very busy,and the boys have not gone back to school yet! Anyway... Scott's parents, Frank & Marlene arrived on Dec 11, after a very long flight and overnight stay in Joburg. We let them settle in for the day and then were off on Dec 12th to a local game reserve Kariega (about 2 hours away). We were fortunate enough to be able to stay in the Homestead at Kariega which is an old farm house on the property that has been remodeled and is stunning. Staying there means we are the only ones there... we have the whole place to ourselves, we have our own game ranger and private game drives, a chef that cooks all our meals and the manager Adri, who makes sure everything goes well. She is amazing! Of course, we are there to see the animals.. and we saw lots! Here are just a few.....





Oh .. the Lions! There amazing animals! There were a pride of about 6-7.. The mother lioness was HUGE!! At this point we have seen quite a few lions and this was the biggest lioness I have seen! Also another fact not sure everyone knows.. the male lion's have different color manes.. (don't know about you but I never really thought much about it) but the darker the mane the more testosterone they have making them the more dominant. Something new I have learned! We saw them two days and as usual they were napping. Anyway check out the photos..

This is one of the male cubs which is almost a year old.

The pride..


One very interesting thing that happened.. we came across the adolescent male lion that has been pushed out of pride laying in the grass. Out of a watering hole behind him came 3 rhino. These rhino did not like the lion being in "their" territory.. so as we sat there watching the rhino chased him off and as he got up and headed away he literally was 10 feet from the vehicle we were in and looked right at us!!!



The whole experience was amazing! Our ranger Thomas was great. He was a great tracker and knew soooo much about the animals. And the views were breathtaking! These experiences are ones I never tire of. Wonderful!



Website for the game reserve... http://www.kariega.co.za/