Tony and Mignon at Pilansberg

Tony and Mignon arrived just after nine on Friday morning for their weekend visit. We where so looking forward to them spending time with us at our camp. Friday was spent talking and enjoying one anothers company and preparing food.
We got up at six Saturday morning to go on our first gamedrive with them and after paying for their entrance to the park we drove thru the gates. We stayed on the paved roads because the Honda Hybrid Mignon's sponsored car is riding somewhat low for the gravel roads in the park, we on the other hand travel the park in Mildred she has great ground clearance and the gravel roads are no problem for her. We spent the morning looking for game and although we did not see any Lion or Chethas we on the other hand saw Rinos, Elephants,Giraffe and many different species of antelope.
Between the game drives and preparing food, and time spent talking and joking with each other I realized that Anita and I are so blessed having our children. I had to bite my lip a time or two this weekend  not to get emotional, sometimes I am just pleasantly overwhelmed by all the love we receive from our wonderful children.
Sunday morning we went again for a game drive and after stopping at a lookout point a game ranger told me where the Lions where,  but after driving some distance on a freshly grated gravel road we could not find them. After talking to other tourists also looking for the Lions we decided to go on our marry way to see what else we could find. And not far from there came across what I think was our highlight of the weekends game sightings. We looked up to the mountainside and there was about sixty Elephants walking on the very side mountain. 

When we got back to the camp we prepared our Sunday lunch together and after eating we said our goodbyes and Tony and Mignon left for the big city.

Two game drives on one day.

We went for two game drives yesterday. We took the first at midday and another late afternoon. I did not expected to see many game at this time of  day it being so hot, but we did see some giraffe and other game. They are the tallest browsers by several meters, the Giraffe can reach a height of five meters and it can be found throughout  the valley savannah. The Kudu bull we found amongst the Kudu Thorn trees they are leaf eaters and keep to the bush areas.
Zebra is plentiful in the park and we see them often on our game drives. We where stopped by a game ranger who showed us a Leopard but we only got a glimpse of him as he escaped thru the long savannah grass.
On our late afternoon game drive we saw Elephants at the water hole drinking and playing. Not far from the water hole we game across two adult Rhinos and a baby Rhino . Rhino  are being killed for their horns at a alarming rate in South Africa lately and we really very worried, so far this year more than 400 Rhino has been killed for their horns.

Karla and the maths.

Monday was spent doing school work. Karla  and I spent most of the morning practicing different calculations followed by reading and writing . English is our second language and is not spoken at home. It always amazes me how fast the children can learn a new language. Anita spent the morning doing laundry,it's so mage easier for her having our own washer and dryer in the bus it saves me from hauling the washing to the laundry evrytime. We did not go for a game drive yesterday  so today we will renew our permit so we can do game drives in the park for the rest of the week.

Pilansberg National Park

We left our camp at Hartbeespoort dam today a week ago. We had only 120KM to drive to our next camp at Pilansberg National Park, Manyane camp. We left Hartbeespoort dam at 9:30 and we arrived at Pilansberg National Park just after 2:00. After paying for our stay we entered the park and setup camp. It wasn't long and we sat down to watch the wildlife around us. We had to go to Marulong for supplies and on our way back we entered the park from the northern side at the Bakgatla gate where we paid to entrance fee for the time we will spent exploring the park. After entering the park we started seeing game. We spotted Impala and Wildebeest and then we saw two chethas that killed a Impala and was feeding on their kill. We spent some time watching the Chethas and it's was a wonderful experience.
We spent the week doing game drives in the early morning's and school work during the day with a another game drive late afternoon. After getting back from the game drive at night we sit around the campfire talking and later preparing our supper on the goals.