I’m back …..

…. from the wild! What a glorious time we had. Did absolutely, very little!!! My tail-end does feel a bit like a car seat but it was totally worth it. We visited with my FIL and his wife who live on the outskirts of the Kruger National Park. The ‘town’ is called Marloth Park which is actually a game reserve.

So we had daily visits from warthog (I couldn't get a decent pic of these so thanks to SA Tourism for this one)
and zebra at our cottage.

At the folks place we were treated to visits from a very shy duiker (again thanks to SA Tourism)

and a genet !!!

On our trip into the Park on Tuesday, we saw lion, cheetah, hyaena, elephant, buffalo, kudu, impala, klipspringer, hippo, crocodile and a host of different birds. It was like Christmas!!!

This is how close we were to this 'not yet fully grown' pussy cat !!!

Marloth Park is extremely dry and grazing is almost non-existent. They are hopefully coming out of a severe drought (it started drizzling when we left on Friday) and chronic food shortage. Some of the buck are in a very poor condition and are suffering from TB. I took a pic of a very sick and emancipated impala and forwarded it to the Chief Ranger and received a reply from him explaining the TB situation. He also explained the death of so many buck due to 'well-meaning' people feeding the animals maize, wheat and other human food left overs. With maize and wheat, it ferments in the animal's stomach which causes it to explode and the end result is a very painfull death for the animal.

Oh dear, I really didn't mean to end on such a sad note but I was extremely distressed seeing these poor animals suffering so.

So to brighten up, a huge smile and thank you to all who have left me comments. I really do appreciate. Have a wonderful 'rest of the weekend' and let's greet Monday morning with a 'spring' in our step!

Huge hugs and loads of love to all

Denise

oxoxox