WEDNESDAY, APR 14TH--LEOPARD HILLS

We are back at home on the ship now. Let me start from the beginning of today. Up at 5:30am again for our morning (and last) game drive. Marius, our guide, joined the 6 of us for dinner the evening before and we said his mission for our last drive was to find some cape buffalo. It was the last of the “Big Five” game animals in South Africa that we had not gotten good photos of. He must have called all the other camps’ guides as there were 4 other camps looking this morning for some cape buffalo. We drove for an hour and he was talking on the radio with the other land rovers. Finally Abram, our tracker, spotted some fresh cape buffalo dung and tracks as we were driving on a dirt road next to a river. Sure enough there they were on other side of the river and too far for photos but we continued a little longer, and low and behold, there was one cape buffalo by the road grazing away. It did not mind us driving up close and getting lots of photos. So our mission was complete! I forgot to mention that before we found the cape buffalo we came upon 2 kudu (like elk) and a group of about 10 baboons walking down a dry, sandy stream bed. Anyway, we continued driving on numerous roads until Abram spotted fresh elephant paths in the grass. Don’t ask me how he does it. So we head off the road following the paths. The land rovers can only leave the roads to track any one of the Big Five or zebra. Sure enough there was a herd (probably 15) elephants in an area of small trees and high grass. We concentrated on photographing a bull, mother, and baby. Once again they seemed not to mind us being about 25 feet from them. After lots of photos we left them and stopped by a pond to have coffee, tea, and muffins. Safaris are such hard work!! We were pretty far from the lodge so headed back for breakfast as we had to leave the lodge at 11am. Before we left we said bye and thank you to the staff for making our stay so enjoyable. The night before I presented the chef with a nice pen and pencil set for all his good grub. Marius and Abram drove us to an airstrip about 10 minutes from the lodge. It was super nice and built by Richard Branson of Virgin Atlantic airline fame. He had a resort close by. Seven lodges used the small airport to fly guests into. Our Federal Air charter flight was right on time we departed for our 15 minute flight to the Kruger Park Airport. There we boarded a South African Air Link flight direct to Cape Town. The Federal Air airplane was a 11 passenger “Caravan”. The Air Link plane was a 98 passenger jet. The flight to Cape Town was 2 ½ hours and arrived right on time at 4pm. I was amazed that for about all of the flight there was NOTHING below. It was arid, barren, and much like southern Utah. After getting our luggage we were met by Graham, our driver to the port. Just as we pulled up to the pier our ship was arriving so was standing on pier as it docked. There were probably 70 other passengers that had left the ship and gone on different safaris like us waiting for the Voyager. We were waving to the passengers on the ship and they were waving and yelling back to us. Very neat! We are now unpacked and getting ready for dinner. I ordered wine and a cocktail from room service to calm us down while we dressed. I have already downloaded the 550 photos that I took on safari into one of my laptops. I will try to get them on the blog as soon as I can. I HAVE SOME INCREDIBLE PHOTOS! I am going to put most of them on the blog and I know many are similar but they are worth seeing. This has been an incredible experience for Rebecca and I. We loved EVERY minute of it and we will return for another safari. You are all welcome to join us. I guarantee you will love it also. I have to send a special thanks to Marius, Abram, and all the staff at Leopard Hills. They are the BEST and our accommodations was fantastic.