{"id":833,"date":"2019-04-08T20:41:19","date_gmt":"2019-04-08T18:41:19","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/zeus.bitvalve.org\/blogs\/headingsouth\/wp\/?p=833"},"modified":"2019-04-08T20:41:19","modified_gmt":"2019-04-08T18:41:19","slug":"the-big-4","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/headingsouth.bitvalve.org\/?p=833","title":{"rendered":"The Big 4"},"content":{"rendered":"

From Durban we drove about eight hours north past Johannesburg to the Pilanesberg Game Reserve, beautifully located in an inactive crater with a rich and healthy wildlife population. There we stayed at a slightly more luxurious hotel than our usual standard just at the gates to the reserve at the Bakubung Bush Lodge. Our stay included two guided game drives, so after dropping our bags in the room we headed out for the first one. We were sitting in an open bus and were both quite glad to have brought our jackets as the wind was rather chilly. South Africa apparently can get quite cold in the evenings… The tour started of with a nice (although not literally beautiful) view of a brown hyena and two black rhinos hiding in the bushes. The rest of the drive was somewhat more quiet in the animal spotting department, compensated with beautiful views of the landscape and lots of wildebeest and impala. After dark, just on our way back we even got to see some hippos loudly munching away in the bushes. Cool! Hungry after the tour we came back just in time to enjoy a delicious dinner buffet in the lodge.<\/p>\n

The day after we had set the alarm to 5:30 to join the morning drive at 6. This time we were not so lucky and did actually not see much. However, we were not too demotivated, in particular as we could see grazing impalas, wildebeest as well as warthogs from our breakfast table in the lodge \ud83d\ude0d. After breakfast we headed out again into the park on our own. Right away, we got to see a pride of eight lions relaxing by the side of the road! Unfortunately, we were not the only car there, but we still got quite a nice look at those wonderful creatures. Driving further, we also got to see lots of zebras, plenty of giraffes & elephants from a few meters distance, and a few more black rhinos. It is indeed very exciting to drive around, constantly scanning the grass, bushes, trees, etc. for the animals and then being exhilarated (and motivated anew to keep on going) when you finally spot something.<\/p>\n

For the evening we went for a bush braai, a barbecue in the park, where we joined a nice French couple and their two daughters that we had gotten to know during the game drive. Another lovely evening.<\/p>\n

The next day we slept a bit longer and went out in the park after breakfast. We drove around for some hours hoping to finally spot the elusive leopard (which was missing to complete the so-called “Big Five” consisting of Cape Buffalo, Elephant, Black Rhino, Lion, and, well, the Leopard), but luck was not on our side… With heavy heart, we left the beautiful region of Pilanesberg and drove back to Johannesburg, where we’ll spend our last two days in South Africa before flying out to Madagascar!<\/p>\n

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Von Durban aus fuhren wir etwa acht Stunden n\u00f6rdlich an Johannesburg vorbei zum Pilanesberg Game Reserve, das wundersch\u00f6n in einem inaktiven Krater mit einer reichen und gesunden Wildpopulation liegt. Dort \u00fcbernachteten wir in einem etwas luxuri\u00f6seren Hotel als unserem \u00fcblichen Standard direkt vor den Toren des Reservats der Bakubung Bush Lodge. Unser Aufenthalt beinhaltete zwei gef\u00fchrte Pirschfahrten, so dass wir nach dem Absetzen unserer Taschen im Raum zum ersten Mal losfuhren. Wir sa\u00dfen in einem offenen Bus und waren beide sehr froh, unsere Jacken dabei zu haben, da der Wind ziemlich k\u00fchl war. S\u00fcdafrika kann anscheinend abends ziemlich kalt werden….. Die Tour begann mit einem sch\u00f6nen (wenn auch nicht gerade sch\u00f6nen) Blick auf eine Braunhy\u00e4ne und zwei Spitzmaulnash\u00f6rner, die sich in den B\u00fcschen verstecken. Der Rest der Fahrt war in der Tierbeobachtungsabteilung etwas ruhiger, kompensiert durch einen sch\u00f6nen Blick auf die Landschaft und viel Gnu und Impala. Nach Einbruch der Dunkelheit sahen wir auf dem R\u00fcckweg sogar einige Flusspferde, die lautstark im Busch herumfressen. Cool! Hungrig nach der Tour kamen wir gerade noch rechtzeitig zur\u00fcck, um ein leckeres Dinner-Buffet in der Lodge zu genie\u00dfen.<\/p>\n

Am Tag danach hatten wir den Alarm auf 5:30 Uhr gestellt, um um um 6 Uhr an der morgendlichen Fahrt teilzunehmen, diesmal hatten wir nicht so viel Gl\u00fcck und sahen eigentlich nicht viel. Allerdings waren wir nicht allzu demotiviert, zumal wir von unserem Fr\u00fchst\u00fcckstisch in der Lodge grasende Impalas, Gnus sowie Warzenschweine sehen konnten \ud83d\ude0d. Nach dem Fr\u00fchst\u00fcck machten wir uns wieder selbstst\u00e4ndig auf den Weg in den Park. Sofort sahen wir einen Stolz von acht L\u00f6wen, die sich am Stra\u00dfenrand entspannen! Leider waren wir nicht das einzige Auto dort, aber wir hatten immer noch einen ziemlich sch\u00f6nen Blick auf diese wunderbaren Kreaturen. Auf der Weiterfahrt sahen wir auch viele Zebras, viele Giraffen und Elefanten aus wenigen Metern Entfernung und ein paar weitere Spitzmaulnash\u00f6rner. Es ist in der Tat sehr aufregend, herumzufahren, st\u00e4ndig das Gras, die Str\u00e4ucher, die B\u00e4ume usw. nach den Tieren zu durchsuchen und dann erheitert (und neu motiviert, weiterzumachen) zu sein, wenn man endlich etwas sieht.<\/p>\n

F\u00fcr den Abend gingen wir zu einem Busch-Braai, einem Barbecue im Park, wo wir uns einem netten franz\u00f6sischen Paar und ihren beiden T\u00f6chtern anschlossen, die wir w\u00e4hrend der Pirschfahrt kennengelernt hatten. Ein weiterer sch\u00f6ner Abend.<\/p>\n

Am n\u00e4chsten Tag schliefen wir etwas l\u00e4nger und gingen nach dem Fr\u00fchst\u00fcck im Park aus. Wir fuhren einige Stunden lang herum, in der Hoffnung, endlich den schwer fassbaren Leoparden zu entdecken (der fehlte, um die sogenannten “Big Five” bestehend aus Kapb\u00fcffel, Elefant, Spitzmaulnashorn, L\u00f6we und, naja, dem Leoparden zu vervollst\u00e4ndigen), aber das Gl\u00fcck war nicht auf unserer Seite….. Schwerm\u00fctig verlie\u00dfen wir die sch\u00f6ne Region Pilanesberg und fuhren zur\u00fcck nach Johannesburg, wo wir unsere letzten beiden Tage in S\u00fcdafrika verbringen werden, bevor wir nach Madagaskar fliegen!<\/p>\n

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From Durban we drove about eight hours north past Johannesburg to the Pilanesberg Game Reserve, beautifully located in an inactive crater with a rich and healthy wildlife population. There we stayed at a slightly more luxurious hotel than our usual standard just at the gates to the reserve at the Bakubung Bush Lodge. Our stay … Continue reading The Big 4<\/span> →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":870,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-833","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/headingsouth.bitvalve.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/833","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/headingsouth.bitvalve.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/headingsouth.bitvalve.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/headingsouth.bitvalve.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/headingsouth.bitvalve.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=833"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/headingsouth.bitvalve.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/833\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/headingsouth.bitvalve.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/headingsouth.bitvalve.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=833"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/headingsouth.bitvalve.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=833"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/headingsouth.bitvalve.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=833"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}