Day 54 - Aquila South African Safari

Today's the day! We were finally doing the one thing we were both desperate to do since before we came out here. Go on a South African Safari!

After plenty of searching, and umming and erring at countless of company's and their prices, we booked one up a couple of weeks ago with Aquila Safaris, and today was the day we were doing it.

We had to get up super early though, with the alarms going off at 5am, as we had to meet our lift at a hotel about 15 minutes walk away, at 6:10. Thankfully, it was a 2 hour journey from where we were getting picked up from, to where the safari was. So headphones went in, hood went up, and I used that 2 hours to catch up on sleep.

We got to Aquila Private National Reserve at around 9am, and were welcomed with a glass of either grape juice or wine (I had grape juice. Not a fan of wine), before heading through to the food hall, where we were treated to a buffet breakfast. I of course took full advantage and completely loaded my plate up with all kinds of fatty foods, which gave me the best representation of a Full English as possible. Hash Browns, Sausages, Beans and Scrambled Egg. That'll do.

We then went outside to jump aboard our safari truck, and met our guide. He was actually really funny and friendly, which made the tour even better so thank you so much to him. 

First up, Rhinos. We saw them pretty much immediately after we entered the reserve, and they were amazing. Lazy, but amazing. Our tour guide was telling us how to tell the difference between males and females, how long they live for, how heavy they weigh and all other facts about these creatures, which I won't rant on about on here. But it was really interesting, aswell as amazing to view.

We then went on and found some hippos lazing about in the water. They're apparently the most dangerous creatures in South Africa, being responsible for 150 deaths a year. They pretty much own the water bit they were in, and apparently will go as far as killing other animals to assert their dominance. Crazy but so cool.

After hippos we spotted a few Giraffes, aswell as some Springboks. A Springbok is the national animal of South Africa, and their rugby team is named after them. They're these really cute, deer like creatures, which are part of the antelope family, and share their territory with the Giraffes. Cool fact about Springboks: in their first day after being born, they already learn how to walk and jump. 2 days after being born they can run up to 60km an hour! Awesome.

We then stopped for a quick break, before visiting the Lion enclosure! Now I love lions, and that was the one animal I was dying to see. So I was gutted when the only ones we could spot were so far away that the only photos we could take were from to much of a distance to be any good. I was gutted. Oh well, we went on to see the elephants next, which were amazing. The girlfriend loves elephants too, so I made sure I took plenty of photos for her. But there was 2 adorable teen elephants there, that seemed to play fight a lot. It got to the point where we had to quickly drive off a bit because they started play fighting right next to our truck! Quality stuff.

After the elephants, we then headed over to the Aquila rescue centre, just opposite the safari park. Here, they took in animals that have been either injured, hunted for, endangered, or kept in terrible conditions, and they nursed them to better health, before taking them into their safari, where they are looked after incredibly well. I finally got to see my lions! Happy days! We also saw Leopards there too, and it was amazing to see them so close!

We then headed back to reception, and all got out of the truck, the safari was over. We were treated to a buffet lunch, although the food looked pretty dreadful so I skipped that. Lucky for them. We just ended up chilling out on sun loungers until our lift came to pick us up. We then had another 2 hour journey home. So headphones in hood up. I headed back to sleep. 

We got home at around 6, after an amazing day. Back to work tomorrow though, and we have all new schools and Crèche's to coach at, so we have to be up early. To catch up on sleep I don't intend on having a late night tonight!

Harry