Guest Letter

22/10/2011 Africa

We arrived at the Pilanesberg National Park in the dead of the night. It was Friday the 22nd October and we had been travelling for at least 2hrs.
Ivory Tree Game Lodge lay in the darkness, and you could hear the distant calls of the insects, calling to one another. A slight shiver ran down my spine as the cold became more noticeable.
After we had settled into our room, there was an overall feeling that we were going to have a really fabulous time at Ivory Tree, and as we made our way down to dinner we were greeted by our guide who introduced himself as William. Little did we know he would not just become our friend but he would touch our hearts.
The next morning we got up nice and early and made our way down to the lodge to grab some coffee, and maybe a biscuit or two, and then made our way to the jeep. It was a very cold morning and the air was sharp. The sky was a mixture of blue, white and orange, and you could hear the distant sound of a bird that called “Work har-der” or “Drink lag-er” (whichever you prefer), in its own rhythmical tune. It was William that brought our attention to this, (William every time I heard this bird tweet this tune, it really made me laugh inside, as I could really relate to what you had said).
There were 8 of us in total including William, but it soon became 7 when one of the guests had to leave to go home. (Carlos) ha-ha.
The engine revved and off we went into the wilderness. I had my green poncho wrapped around me like a cocoon, with the cold wind blowing into my face. We stopped at some Impala, and our Ranger, William, described them as the McDonalds of the bush and showed us the M shaped mark on their bottoms before adding “mmmm,mmmm Pala.” The whole jeep laughed out loud.
We saw lots of very interesting animals that day. We saw two bull Elephants, eating from a tree as well as lots of Giraffes. I put in a special request, to see Wildebeest, and by golly did I see a lot of them, I was more than satisfied.
We stopped at a picnic site within the park and had tea and coffee and ate chocolate, toffee and blueberry muffins. William told us he had been up at 3am baking them and everyone believed him for just a minute. Even though it was still slightly cold, everybody was in high spirit and we all enjoyed ourselves. William continued to give us lots of interesting facts about the area. But the banter within the truck became hysterical e.g. the tree, dead dog with no bark and man-eating Zebras
William found it funny that I had assumed the Zebra was one of the Big Five because I felt it had been hunted for its skin, after seeing the Zebra skin at the airport and I thought it would attack humans and animals with its hooves. We all laughed as we imagined a Zebra trying to attack us and the jokes afterwards were always about man-eating Zebras. A lady on the trip referred to a Warthog as an Aardvark and this produced more hysterical laughter, and we referred to Warthogs after that as Aardvarks and everybody knew what is was.

It was very exciting when William located a Leopard, it was dark outside and so he shone his spotlight on it on the hillside. This was very exciting for all of us, and was one of the highlights of our trip, and we have William to thank for that.

On the journey back to the lodge in the darkness, William stopped quickly and after leaving his vehicle returned with a Chameleon perched on his hand. This was only one of a few interesting and unusual things that William pointed out, others included, lions footprints, spiders webs, birds’ nests, snake tracks and the effects of burning elephant dung. All of which were really interesting.
William went to great lengths to show us a female lion and her 3 baby cubs, and this was eventually successful when the female lion and her three cubs walked gently passed our vehicle. We also saw 14 Rhino on the Sunday as we made it our mission to find as many as possible.
William helped to create a memory for me that I will never forget and will always treasure.
Dear William
At the beginning of this story I mentioned that you had touched our hearts, and on the way to Sun City, after we had waved goodbye to you, we all cried our eyes out, but they were happy tears because we had enjoyed the trip so much.
You helped make Africa a really memorable experience. You really made me laugh, and I have learnt things about animals that I never knew.
If ever you come to England, you are very welcome to come and stay with us, and I hope I will be coming back to Africa very soon, as it is the best place I have ever visited, and is the only place I have ever felt truly emotional and sad to be leaving.
I hope to see you again, and I hope we can stay in touch. I enjoyed reading the stories you wrote and gave me, I thought they were really good. I miss Africa already and I have only been gone a day.
Have you had an English breakfast tea since the day you tried it?
Thank you so, so much. X
Jasmine Newton

The little ones make the difference

Last night we went out on the afternoon game drive and at last the first summer rains came to Pilanesberg and the insects and amphibians in the Pilanesberg came to life. Dung beetles were spotted, termites were out on their nuptial flight, millipedes all over the road and the very prominent call of the banded rubber frog was present in the early hours of the morning. All of the above mentioned little creatures play a vital role in the functioning of the ecosystem. Dung beetles are responsible for the eradication of all the dung in the reserve and by burying their dung balls they put back vital nutrients and trace elements back into the soil for later consumption by plants and if it wasn’t for dung beetles the entire Africa would be covered up by a meter high dung layer. Termites also play a vital role, they serve as a major food source for a huge variety of animals but also through their feeding habits they put back nutrients in the soil. In general insects are a necessity for all life on earth for example if all the insects in the world would be eradicated, 64% of the remaining animal life would go extinct due to starvation. The insect life on the Pilanesberg is massive and be sure to be on the look out for them on your next stay at Ivory Tree Game lodge. Always remember that real men don’t stand on ants.

Ranger
Gerhard.

Lion vs Leopard

This morning started out brilliantly, as we left the lodge one of our other vehicles called in a sighting of a lioness, TT, and her two cubs. The cubs are about a year and a half old so are already quite big. The lions were about 20 meters off the road in a burnt area, and to make the sighting even better there were two rhino standing in the middle of the road about 40 meters away from the lions. Eventually the lions moved on and obviously the rhino moved in the opposite direction.

After an excited coffee stop we responded to another lion sighting, this one being Noku and her cubs. These cubs however are only a couple of months old. They were on a eland carcass and to our delight there was a big male leopard approaching the kill from the side of a mountain. The leopard took his time as he was very wary of the lioness. Eventually he came within about hundred meters from the lioness when she saw him. He froze in mid stride, there was a standoff for about 5 minutes when the lioness suddenly charged. The leopard immediately ran straight up the mountain to avoid any further attention. The lioness eventually went behind the carcass to digest her meal in the cool shade of a small Beachwood.

To see these big cats interacting is really a privilege that few get to witness, needless to say we were all ecstatic!

Ranger Neill

Nat Geo Lions

Now one might ask himself what National Geographic lions are, so let me explain. In general lions sleep for an average of between 20 and 22 hours a day. But if you watch National Geographic it looks like all they do the whole day and night is hunt. This morning we almost had that!

Leonard and I had a group that really wanted to see some lions up close, so naturally when one of the other rangers found three lionesses we responded. The sighting was absolutely brilliant, they were right next to the road in an area where the grass was burnt away completely with nice green shoots starting to pop out. They came out and walk down the road, then one saw a warthog running across the road and set after it.

She eventually ended up chasing it across the road right in front of us, the second female chasing close behind. As is more common with lions than any other big predator, they missed. Then the one behind us started chasing a wildebeest, but she also missed. Then crazy enough another ranger found two more wildebeest further up the road stalking wildebeest. There was so much going on that no-one actually knew where to go! Eventually one of the wildebeest thought something out of place and gave an alarm call, which of course got all the wildebeests’ attention, enabling them to escape the stalking lionesses.

We spent a good hour and a half in the sighting, unfortunately without seeing a kill, but we still got a lot of excitement and a sighting that none of us will forget soon.

Ranger Neill

Leopard in the Pilanesberg Game reserve

When I started at Ivory Tree Game Lodge in the Pilanesberg Game Reserve there was still a Big Five experience I had not had (LEOPARD).

During my training and introduction to how the Ivory Tree Game Lodge ranger team operates and works as a well-oiled machine, one of the perks was to be able to go on safari with fellow rangers and learn the different ways each and every one conducts an unforgettable experience. During this time I had my first leopard and to make it even more exiting she had a very young cub with her, the sighting was short but wonderful and I will never forget my first elusive cat.

This is where it gets great, since then I have had a number of great sightings of leopard. My fellow Rangers recon I will run out of luck soon enough but I say the bush owes me a phew more, after all, I had not seen a leopard until the age of thirty two, crazy I know.

So here are some of the pictures of sightings. This one was taken on safari by some of my guest from Indonesia. They were super lucky on this day to see this cat after nine in the mornig.

On Mankwe first plain:





This was a great sighting and lasted for some time.

This is one of many sightings I had at a place called red cyanide:



This cub and his sibling as well as their mother have been seen here regularly as there den is nearby.
This brings me to this point, I started this story on the 20/07/2011.
About two months after the previous photo on the 20/07/2011 I have this wonderful sighting of the same cubs with guests from Dubai. So my luck on safari has still not run out!!


So here are the pics




If you look carefully you can see the second leopard behind the bottom of his rump area but only its back.

So yes for me safari's at Ivory Tree Game Lodge in the Pilanesberg Game Reserve has been great this far.

Ranger William.

Ranger’s surprise

Sometimes the rangers at Ivory Tree Game Lodge decides to head into the Pilanesberg National Park to go have some fun, most of the time though it is work related. And if for some reason they have to go to Sun City it is much preferred to rather do a personal little safari through the park instead of driving around the park.

Yesterday was one such day. The rangers had to go to Sun City for shooting practice and decided to drive through the Pilanesberg National Park. Not long into the park we saw some wildebeest, impala, giraffe, and all the usual plains game. What we did not know was this was about to turn into a dream safari.

About 5km from Ivory Tree Game Lodge we saw a vehicle parked off to the side of the road. Some of the guys joked and said it would be elephant, some said rhino, and I took a wild guess and said leopard. When we parked behind the vehicle we couldn’t really see anything, but when we moved a bit back, lo and behold, there she was, a beautiful leopard walking through the open plains.

Her body posture also suggested that she might be hunting, which at this stage we couldn’t understand as we couldn’t really see any animals around. Then one of the guys spotted a warthog under a tree. The leopard moved under a tree right next to the one the warthog was using.

We waited for quite a while after she disappeared into the shade, and then all of a sudden warthog came running out everywhere! It was absolute chaos for the warthog, they had managed to completely surround the leopard, giving her a big range to pick from. In retrospect this might actually be what saved them, as the leopard might have had difficulty deciding which one to chase.

In the end all the warthog managed to escape and the leopard decided to head for higher ground, hopefully to plan her next attempt. What caught us all off guard though was the time this all took place, about half past 10 in the morning. That is always something to remember, the animals don’t read the books we write about them.

Ranger Neill

Wildlife Photography by Kevin Jeffery

Nedbank Morning Game drive

Well this morning I had a great game drive , we left just on 6:00am the air was on the warm side , we headed of not long I got 2 Lionesses walking in the road towards me I switched off , they were walking at a steady pace , the approached the game viewer and sniffed at the wheels ,the where very relaxed with no worry what so ever , but I could notice they were on the hunt by their body language just before getting the 2 females I got some Impala that just crossed the road at the on junction link , and I knew the females would stalk on to them. So I decided to turn around and wait with the Impala to see what would happen , a few minutes went past and I notice the one female low to the ground getting closer to the Impala , She was off after them but no luck she was just to far out from them .

She then re-joined the other female, starting to play a bit when they met up. They then carried on walking in the road in the distance I noticed a big heard of Blue Wildebeest walking towards them , they went down waiting , I knew something had to happen this time, these females where hungry.
The Blue Wildebeest where on their path, I could see the lions had put their eyes on a youngster at the back of the heard they got close within 20 meters of the lions the one female broke off at full speed she was after the young Blue Wildebeest, but the youngster was too quick it was close but not close enough. She gave up and came back towards the road where she lay down next to my Game Viewer for a few minutes getting her breath back. They slowly made their way down into a thicket.

We decide to move on and see what els we could find we managed to get another sighting of Lion a nice male and young female very relaxed lie in the sun on a burnt patch of grass. A little further we got an Elephant bull, lots of White Rhino and a few Giraffe.

It was a stunning drive that we had, there was not for one second that we never had something happening.

Shepherds Tree Head Ranger : Greg Toplis

Crispy Morning Adventure

So soon after the guest arrived we went down for breakfast , our guest where looking to see Giraffe, Lion , Rhino and Zebra . Little Hanna was soon keen to go out, she did not wanna eat her breakfast. All was set to head out off we went .

The morning was crispy and fresh and was warming up very quickly, not long in to the drive we came across some impala walking in the road , little Hanna got so excited she wanted to see more ...
So we carried on with our drive finding Blue Wildebeest , Impala .
Not to long after we found a Female White Rhino with her youngster walking next to the road feeding as they moved alone side us, we watched them for a few minutes and headed on looking to see if we could find some lions for the family to see.

Soon we got to one of the water holes where there was a Pod of hippos soaking up the warm rays from the sun . We notice a very young one just a few months old lie up next to its mother. While watching them we notice some water buck making their way down to the dam , at this time little Hanna was blown away and wanted to see more .

We carried on with the drive and came cross what we where looking for a pride of Lions in this pride there were 15 of them lion in the long grass as well soaking up the sun . In between them where a few cubs playing between their mothers .
Little Hanna was so excited to see them she kept asking if she could have one .

After some time we move on with the drive we found more Rhino and tons of planes game from , Zebra, Impala and Blue Wildebeest .

On the way back to lodge we notice some thing Lie on the rocks , when having a better look at the rocks we noticed 3 lions, they where so tied just lie there doing nothing .
They where quite far in . so we decide to move on after a few minutes .

And off we went back to the lodge to relax for the rest of the day .

By: Shepherds Tree Ranger Greg Toplis (Head Ranger)

Crispy Morning

Morning all

Up bright and early getting ready to head out on our morning game drive, its a bit on the cold side with clear blue skys . Waiting on the guests to head down to the lodge for morning coffee and tea , you can hear the morning bush come alive as the air starts to warm up , its strange how one can notice the Francolin and Guine fowl try and take over the morning calls , they are like our bush alarms .

While sitting around having our coffee we can hear the callings of lion in the distance , gracing us with their morning precence , when hearing a lion call one can truly know you are in the bush .

Game viewers are ready ,bags are packed so we are off......


Shepherds Tree Ranger : Greg Toplis (Head Ranger)

Elephants around the lodge

For the pased few days here at Shepherds Tree we have been visited by some of your bigger friends,yesterday we all bared witness to a single Elephant bull that came for a quick drink at your reception's dam...we all thought that it was only the one but as we went up to the rooms we soon found out that is was not the case because low and behold up at room 11 there stood a breeding herd of +- 30 Elephants and what a wonderful sight to see.

They have now been hanging around the lodge area for the last 2 days and signs of there presence are everywhere.

The herd consists of a couple of cows and 1 or 2 bulls but for me personally the best of them all are the little calves still trying to get full controle of there trunks witch are flopping around all over the place...

Ranger; Zander Kotze

Hiding Leopard:

From about the start of 2011 there has been a regular sighting of a female leopard with two cubs in the centre part of Pilanesberg National Park! If you are a ranger in Ivory Tree Game Lodge you would know that this is a absolute special sighting because the leopard is a rare sighting in the Pilanesberg National Park, not even to talk about two cubs!
They where first spotted on Mankwe Way behind the red cyanide rocks! All ivory tree rangers have watched these fascinating creatures since they were very small cubs and it became a very regular sighting until lately!
All rangers of the Pilanesberg National Park, especially Ivory Tree rangers noticed that you don’t really see these cubs anymore! They have become so famous that even the private vehicles knew about them. It’s most probably because of that, that the female leopard decided it’s time to move these youngsters to a new safe location that no one knows about.
It’s now about six to seven weeks since we have last seen them or heard about them. Until yesterday!!!!!!!!!
I heard about a rumor going around about three leopards spotted in the Pilanesberg yesterday 16th of July 2011. I just knew I had to go there to check it out.
I got new guests and they requested to see as much as possible since it’s their first time in South Africa. The three leopards were spotted close to fish eagle picnic spot, which is almost in the exact centre of Pilanesberg National Park.
We slowly made our way finding lots of nice plains game along the way. Just before we got to Fish Eagle I saw all the vehicles keeping an eye out for them. By the time we finally got there everyone gave up and went for a rest stop at the picnic spot. I wasn’t exactly sure where they were spotted last so we just made our way up there very slowly. As we almost approached the picnic site itself we saw two beautiful white Rhinos walking on the road. While we were looking at the rhinos I quickly scanned the koppie next to as there we saw one female leopard basking in the sun!
We watched her for about 20 minutes just walking around in on the rocks. We did not manage to see the cubs, but I have heard that the cubs were spotted there! The one female leopard sighting was still absolutely amazing.

Ivory Tree ranger: Neil Coetzer

What a kill!!!!!!!!!!

The best thing about any game drive in the Pilanesberg Game Reserve is that you never know what to expect out there! We try to encourage all guests staying at Ivory Tree Game Lodge to go on all the safaris. You never know what you’ll miss out on.
One morning just as we left the lodge I heard one of the Ivory Tree rangers calling in two female lions just about a kilometer away from us! It was the Central Pride females Noku and Female 74. The central pride is dominated by two big males, Kitumetsi and Labola-Bontle, and the two females Noku and Female 74. Since we haven’t seen lions yet everyone on the vehicle was super excited about the sighting! The best thing of the sighting is the fact that private vehicles haven’t entered the park yet and it was only Ivory Tree rangers at the sighting.
As we approached the sighting we saw one lioness, Female 74, crossing the road and disappearing in the long yellow thatching grass. The other female called Noku was still on the western side off the road where the grass was nice and short! We watched the female lion basking in the morning sun when something suddenly dragged her attention!
About a hundred meters away from her was a small family of warthogs foraging around without even noticing her. The lioness immediately got up and went in full stalking mode! As we were enjoying our game drive we would have never guess what was in store for us!
While watching Noku stalking the warthogs we heard something in the long grass next to us. A Female zebra suddenly game charging out and ran over the road right behind our vehicle with Female 74 chasing her into the open plain! She guided the zebra straight towards Noku, gaining on the zebra with each split second and giving the zebra a monstrous tackle. Noku immediately joined in and helped keep the zebra down so Female 74 could finish the kill!
Everything happened so quickly! Luckily everyone had their cameras ready. One of the guests even took a video. After watching the video we realized that it was a pregnant zebra. It’s something I will never forget and by looking at the expression on my guests faces I’m sure it’s something they will treasure forever!
Ranger: Neil Coetzer

In For the Kill!!!

With the recent fires ravaging the Pilanesberg, safaris were at an all time high.
Leaving Ivory Tree Game Lodge a little earlier than usual, my guests and I were excited for a good safari not knowing that tonight would be life changing. With a relatively slow start to the game drive, general game was seen in large numbers but the big 5 were a little hard to come by.
Deciding on an earlier stop to stretch legs and have a sundowner, we gave ourselves time to strategize for the second half of the safari. With the setting sun at our backs we headed east. Darkness closing in fast I was in desperate need of a Big 5 sighting. Crossing drainage lines and thickets we moved into Motlobo Plains. Here again were hoards of general game but something was different, they were alert, they knew something was around but what was it!
Scanning the plains with a powerful spotlight I picked up 3 ghostly images. LIONS!!! They were tentatively watching a herd of 40+ Wildebeest, knowing the pride as the Central Pride there was a missing female. Deciding to do a last scan we spotted her. She had flanked the Wildebeest herd and was in a perfect position for an assault.
Closing in quickly, she was spotted and chaos erupted. The Wildebeest headed straight to the kopje (hill) for safety, which would have been ideal if not for 2 White Rhino frightening them back down the hill towards our vehicle. Not wanting to move the game drive vehicle, we split the herd and we now knew we were right in the thick of it!
For one wildebeest it was too late, she had been taken down by the 3 lions we had seen first. The struggle did not last long.
Getting into a better position we witnessed a big male lion ripping a fetus from its dead mother. Making sure my guests were all alright after this life altering experience. We watched in silence until it was time to head back to Ivory Tree.
To my guests, the Pilanesberg will never be seen in the same light again.
Ranger Michael Malan

Honeymoon Game Drive 08/07/2011

Yesterday afternoon , we set off on our game drive I was appose to have 10 pax on my game viewer , but only 2 had arrived Mr and Mrs Wallis , a Local couple from Johannesburg , they were here for their honeymoon so I had to make their stay one not to forget. In my safety brief I asked what they would like to see the most and they both asked for elephant and Lion , so I said to them I would do my best . Heading out on drive we spoke a lot about the area and the history of the park.

15min into the drive I came across some Impala under a Shepherds tree , this was perfect I could explain where and why the Shepherds tree is called a Shepherds tree this is because the Shepherds came to rest under these tree for shade and because the tree keeps a constant temperature .

This is why we could be finding the impala resting under it ,as we carried on with our drive we came across a few different birds near by a fire , these birds where fork tailed drongs , they were in the area feeding from the insects that were flying away from the fire .

Few moments after that I notice an Elephant moving alone side one of the roads that was up ahead. This was a large bull elephant he was busy feeding on some sweet thorn a few meters off of the road. While watching him I heard a sighting come through over the radio for Tau which means lion not far from where we were , of we set to go look for the lions , on the way we got lots of plains game animals such as Zebra , Impala, Blue Wildebeest and Red Heartbeats which we stopped for some photos.

On our way to the lions we managed to find 4 White Rhinos, right next to the road the guests where so happy to see them and where going mad with their cameras. After some time we started to move off on search of the lions that were called in lucky for me I was been kept up to date by the other ranger’s in the park that they were sleeping in the open. I was not far now maybe 5 min away, soon as we knew it we had them a male and female that have been mating in the area for the last few days. They were at most maybe 40m off of the road just. This blew away the guest’s we stayed with them talking about the lions in the park. After some time we headed off for sun downers while having drinks we head a leopard calling. We then set back to the lodge seeing tons of plains game again and 2 large spotted eagle owls. We had just been on our access road for some time when one of my rangers call in a leopard a few hundred meters from the lodge we headed off quick and a few seconds before us getting there he had move off into some thick bush. We then headed on to the lodge to warm up around the fire, and head to dinner.

Surprise in the Pilanesberg

Surprise in the Pilanesberg
Ivory Tree Game Lodge is situated in the Northern sector of the Pilanesberg Game Reserve, so sometimes it is a bit of a long drive for us to go all the way to the western sector of the park. But sometimes it just pays off.
My guests and I decided one day that we were going to take the long road, Moloto. Just as we passed one of the dams a vehicle came from the front and told us about lions with cubs not too far up the road. Excitement flowed over us in a flash, lions were one thing, cubs a different story all together. We started driving with our eyes almost popping out of their sockets, but we just kept going without seeing anything.
Fortunately the only problem was the guy in the other vehicle simply underestimated the distance to the lions. We almost started doubting if they were actually there, when we saw a vehicle parked a bit up the road. Sure enough there they were, three lionesses and cubs all over the place.
And just as a bonus they were only lying about ten meters away eating a Red Hartebeest that they caught. This was absolutely amazing, the cubs were stalking each other in the long grass, playing as if they don’t have a care in the world, with their moms only glancing in their direction in between their feeding frenzy.
After a while they decided to move their kill to a patch of shade further away, unfortunately for us this meant we couldn’t really see them anymore and the cubs took their antics to the other side of the bush. At least we also had our fill, and the long ride paid off.
Ranger Neill

My Game Drive with Kylie Minogue

It was Thursday 7th July 2011 about 11:30 when the call came through. Ryan Brayshaw (Cradle Hotels operations manager) was on the line to let us know Kylie Minogue would be doing a game drive with us. I was thrilled I had answered that call because I quickly volunteered for the job, who could blame me. I quickly got a game viewer ready and by 12:30 was off to pick her up.

At around 13:15 I arrived at the Palace, I was met by the head Concierge who informed me that the game drive had been canceled. My heart sank, but after a few phone calls it turned out that it was a game drive with another company which had been canceled, and ours was still on, what a relief. Time dragged on, but eventually 14:00 arrived and it was time for the drive. There were 7 guests that would be joining me, Kylie her security and Management. I expected all the rest to be on the game viewer first and Kylie to arrive last, however this was not at all the case, Kylie was the first one out. At first I did not recognize her at all, and it was only when she stretched out her hand and introduced herself as Kylie that I clicked, how embarrassing. Eventually we managed to round up the rest of the entourage and it was time to set off, I sat up on my game viewer door and began my safety briefing just like I had done a million times before. When I was done I climbed into my driver’s seat and as I was getting ready to depart, Kylie leaned forward and asked “sorry is it Peter or Pete?” I quickly tried to remember what I had said my name was in my safety briefing, but my mouth did not want to wait for my brain and blurted out, “Peter, Pete, Peety I don’t mind,” damn, I had just become Peety for the rest of the day.

After a short drive we arrived at Bakubung gate, where we entered the park. The first animals we spotted were some zebra about 100m from the road. Not a great sighting by any stretch of the imagination but their excitement was obvious. I knew from here on out it was going to be a fantastic game drive. We carried on a short distance and found some waterbuck, a beautiful big male with some very impressive horns, he was courting some ladies and seemed to be doing quite well. More Impala and wildebeest followed, it took us quite some time just to reach Lengau dam which is only 2km from the gate because the group was enjoying the general game viewing so much. I realized that if we carried on at this pace we would not make it to the lodge on time. The last thing I wanted was for people to think I had gone and kidnapped Kylie Minogue! So I decided to pick up the pace a bit. After we turned onto Ntswe drive the sightings slowed down and we made up a bit of time. By the time we reached Kukama we had made up enough time to chat some more, however the sightings were not around. I spotted some Elephant dung on the side of the road and stopped the game viewer. Jumping out I said “Ok, let’s talk shit,” Kylie just grinned while the rest giggled. After chatting about how we would identify this as elephant dung I mentioned that some believe elephant dung can be smoked to cure a headache. This they were a little skeptical about, but Kylie decided she wanted a photo with the medicinal Elephant dung, I passed it back her expecting her to hold it with two fingers and a disgusted look on her face, but to my surprise she grabbed it with both hands and a big grin. The rest of the car was in hysterics as she posed for various photos. A little further down we found a big Rhino midden and some Mal Pitte growing on it, everyone was quite curious as to what hallucinations these little black seeds of the mal pitte might cause, we also found a nice track of a big male lion, Kylie was in awe of the size of the track. Eventually we reached the Shepherds tree access chain, I was now thinking we were only about 15min away from the lodge, but would you believe it we found the most amazing sighting of giraffe and zebra together just a few hundred meters down the road. We must have spent a good 15 minutes with these guys as they crossed the road all around us, the youngsters playing while the parents browsed and paying little attention to the kids. Cameras clicked and Kylie chuckled as a very young giraffe realized she had been left behind by her mom and ran awkwardly to catch up. By now we were running late for the lodge again and reluctantly had to move on.

We were greeted back at the lodge by the entire Shepherds Tree management team and Spencer on the drums. Kevin (Shepherds Tree GM) showed the group around the lodge and took them through to the cigar lounge where there were cocktails and a roaring fire waiting. Kylie was nice enough to take a group photo with Kevin, Annalie, Monika and myself. I was then lucky enough to be asked to take a photo with just Kylie, she perched herself up on the bonnet of the game viewer and I stood next to her. After enjoying the views of the Pilanesberg and of course the peace and quiet that Shepherds Tree has to offer it was decided to head on back to the Palace. It was obvious that all had enjoyed their visit to the lodge, and I even heard whispers that they were sorry they had not heard about us before booking elsewhere.

Back on the road again to see what else would pop up on the way to the gate. Kylie decided to sit in the front seat next to me for the drive back, I had let her in on the secret of the front heater. Wildebeest, Zebra, Impala were plentiful, but we did not spend too much time with them as we did not want to get caught in the icy darkness the Pilanesberg offers quite early in winter. We were on the hunt for one of the big five, I had to find ONE! Nothing turned up for the first 15min or so then finally, 2 White Rhinos right next to the road. As they heard the noise of the engine approaching they moved off about 10 meters, this allowed us to drive passed them and get a great position for photos. But being Rhinos, they just moved slowly along with heads buried in the grass not really giving us that perfect shot everyone was waiting for. This did not stop the frenzy of photos at all, and cameras clicked away. A few minutes went by and everyone started to get tired of taking photos of Rhino bum and body. Just as Kylie next to me turned off her camera the one big male lifted his head to look at us, I have never seem someone try and turn on a camera so fast, she managed to get it on in time and took the photo, I thought she was going to jump out of the car in excitement. The headlines flashed through my mind “Kylie trampled by rhino, Peety to blame.” Luckily for me she remained seated and I could breathe a sigh of relief. The rest of the drive was quiet as far as game viewing goes, but it did not matter because we were all so happy about the rhino sighting.

On arriving back at the Palace everyone jumped off the game viewer and I said goodbye to them all shaking their hands as they left. Kylie came to say goodbye and I was expecting a hand shake but to my surprise she instead gave me a big hug and thanked me for a wonderful afternoon. I couldn’t help but smile.

It was an unforgettable day for me, and I hope for them as well.

By Peter Breedveld

Lions at Dinner Time

The family on my vehicle only recently moved to South-Africa and I wanted to give them the best time possible, so finding a lion was important. It was a cool summers evening and we were looking for the centrals. We had a very nice drive with lots of fantastic sightings so we decided to stop for drinks at sun set hoping to hear them roar. As we were getting ready to leave it happened, the vocals came and our voices were filled with excitement.

They were loud and clear, and sounded very close by so I told everyone to keep their eyes peeled. However, Mother Nature is unpredictable and nothing was working we just could not find them. Eventually we decided to head back to camp with hope of better luck in the morning. I dropped my guests off for pre dinner drinks while I parked the car. I heard one of the other rangers on the radio say that the lions were walking on the road not far from the lodge. With the speed of light I ran into the lodge to find my guests hoping that they were up for another attempt. Everyone rushed to the car and we headed out into the night.

Within five minutes we saw the shapes of two big male lions walking down the road towards the car, it was perfect. As the first one got close to the car I noticed the scar on his right eye, I mentioned his name was Kitumetsi, and he has more scarring than his half brother Labola-Bontle, who was slightly bigger with a somewhat more impressive mane, but both lions were magnificent. As they past us the silence broke with a mighty roar that vibrated through the car. We turned around and followed them down the road. As we were talking saying it couldn’t get any better, Mother Nature surprised us all. With a silent signal the two lions dashed off the road into the bush and a loud distress call followed, breaking the silence.

We turned the spotlight towards the sound finding them working together bringing down a male waterbuck. Kitumetsi had his jaws around its throat and Labola-Bontle was pulling it down from its hind quarters. After a few minutes it was all over, the two boys were lying panting to catch their breath beside their prize. Once again the night was filled with a loud roar of victory. After watching them for a few minutes we decided to let them feed in peace and we headed back home for our own victory feast.

Ranger Janco

An Endemic Spotted

Recently I was privileged enough to see one of the most difficult animals to see in the whole African continent. My guests and I stopped for a classic sundowner drink at Mankwe hide, when I heard lions vocalizing on the other side of Mankwe dam. I quickly got all my guests back onto the vehicle with drinks and all, we then set of to go and find the lions, but what we found will be remembered forever.

We went driving down Mankwe way and spotted only the usual impala and wildebeest along the way. Just as I was about to lose all hope there it was . . . AARDVARK! At a first glimpse I thought it was a scrub hare with its ears upright, but then I took my binoculars and saw the only animal that is endemic to Africa. It was the first time I ever saw one in the 2 years of being a ranger and I was absolutely stoked about it. Aardvark is by nature a very nocturnal animal and very rare to see them, every ranger regards it as a golden sighting. An aardvark can be up to 1.7m long and weigh as much as 60kg, with a life expectancy of about 20 years. Their main food source is ants and termites hence their name “aardvark” which means “earth pig” and makes a reference to their habit of digging and living in holes. A whole array of other animals uses empty aardvark holes as their homes.

Aardvark has powerful claws which they use to open up termite mounts and stick in their pig like snout to suck out termites like a vacuum cleaner. Also interesting about aardvark is their teeth that never stop growing, due to the fact that they get grinded down by the amount of sand in the diet of an Aardvark.

It was really an amazing sighting for me and my guests and hopefully I can see one again soon. Till next time remember that real men don’t stand on ants.

Ranger
Gerhard

Elusive Elephants

There is nothing as enjoyable for a ranger as to have guests who are just as passionate about the bush as himself, and a couple of weeks ago I had some of the biggest nature lovers I have ever met. The lady in particular only wanted to see elephant and spend some time with them. Yes she was extremely excited when we saw the lions and rhino, but they are still not elephants!

One afternoon we hear an update about a small breeding herd on Tau link, but at this stage we are enjoying an absolutely breathtaking sunset on top of Lenong view point. We decide that after sunset we will drive over Tau link to see if we can catch a glimpse of the ellies. When we got to the spot where they were earlier there was absolutely no sign of them at all! We decide that before giving up we are going to check the pan quickly, but as it is a fairly cold night we don’t really think they will be there to drink water. We were wrong.

As we pull up to the top of the pan, there they were. Two big females, three youngsters, one tiny calf and a medium size bull. They were standing all around the pan drinking water. The pan itself is an old whole dug up for soil, so the viewing area is raised quite a bit above the water, with a perfect view of everything going on at the water’s edge. We sat in awe watching them splash around and play. The spot where we were had fairly steep banks so we thought they would probably move up on the road side of the pan where it is a bit more level, once again we were wrong.

When they were done at the water the matriarch started climbing the bank right in front of the vehicle. We moved back to be as insignificant a threat as possible, but it was still the matriarchs duty to make sure we are no danger to the calves. She first came to stand right in front of us to block us from the calves following her path. When all of them were out she started to move into the bush, but then it was the other females turn to assess the situation. She moved up next to the vehicle, playing with some dirt lying on the ground. It was absolutely fascinating, it almost seemed as if she was doing ‘under cover’ surveillance. She just kept standing there, one eye on us, one eye on the herd, playing with the soil. Eventually she came a bit closer and inspected the inhabitants of the vehicle, when after a couple of minutes she was sure it was safe to turn her back on us she moved to join the rest. Just as she got to them it was almost as if she glanced back, just to make sure we were not following.

In an incidence like this one really learns to appreciate these animals, not only because of their awesome natural power, but also because of their gentle, loving, caring attitude towards each other. Maybe instead of trying to learn about them, we should consider trying to learn from them.

Till next time.

Neill - Ranger

The Days Of The Short Grass

It's a yearly cycle...Every year we burn the Pilanesberg, burn the grass I mean. And the reason for this is to remove and clear dead, old and useless grass. This then paves the way for new tasty grass to re-grow.

'Out with the old, in with the new so to speak'.

I have to admit...For photography purposes I love the short grass. It makes it easier to not only spot the animals but to get some great photo opportunities. So I'm pretty happy that over the last few weeks we have been burning sections/ blocks around the park. There has also been this constant haze in the air from the smoke which has given an interesting quality to the light, making the colors and light in the images really interesting.

I started at Ivory Tree Game lodge in Dec 2010. I found my favorite road to drive on when I got here to be Thutlwa drive. Almost every day I found Lion’s there and especially a group of 5 lionesses. One of these lionesses was most certainly pregnant. I happened to come across her one day just passed Thutlwa grave yard in the open plain. I picked her up from about 300m off and walking towards us, easy to do so as the grass was short and green just after the first bit of rain. (See pic attached) She came closer and closer and eventually noticed a couple of blue Wildebeest on the opposite side of the road…..She began to stalk….My guests and I could hardly contain our excitement. She continued to stalk and moved closer, eventually crossing in front of my car. The Wildebeest then saw her, alarm called and then scattered. The lioness was just not close enough to spring her attack and immediately gave up.

It's an amazing experience not only to witness the stalk and attempted hunt of this beautiful animal, but also to see the emotions of intensity while stalking and the disappointment showing all over her face once her cover had been blown.

This lioness now has 5 cubs. I have not been lucky enough as yet to see them. A couple of our rangers have had the good fortune of seeing them, but only once...I hope they are still all ok...I hope I get my chance to see them soon.

Black Rhino, White Rhino

The Pilanesberg counts as one of the best places anywhere to observe Rhinoceros, both black and white. Field guides (the written kind) will tell you that the two species will very rarely interact socially, and this is reflected by the experiences of field guides (the talking kind).

This in mind, I was extremely privileged a while ago to witness a pair of white rhino (Ceratotherium simum) and a pair of black rhino (Diceros bicornis) in a fascinating contest for a shrinking mud-wallow.

As van der Merwes's law (the SA bush version of Murphy's) would have it, I was without guests or a camera, on a birding drive on one of my favourite routes, Dithabaneng. As i came around the final corner at Dithabaneng pan, I noticed what I thought was a crash of four white rhino on the northern side of the waterhole. I soon realised that the pair of black rhino (a mother and fairly large calf) was headed for where the white rhinos were enjoying a sunset mud-bath). The dry season was almost at its height, and even this muddy oasis was only to last a week or two longer before being baked to cracks.

I first realised that they might defy Richard Estes when the sub-adult black rhino, head up in typical black rhino fashion, trotted up to the two large white rhinos and rubbed itself almost affectionately on the side of one of the bulls. Like myself, the bull seemed at a loss, standing there looking slightly confused (in typical white rhino fashion!). The black rhino mother suddenly seemed to take notice of what was going on and approached from a few metres away with a snort.

Like many of the white rhino encounters I've seen in the Pilanesberg, what followed was subtle and deliberate. The two bulls stood side by side, and so too did the mother and calf, both pairs facing each other, only centimetres separating their horns. First the white rhino took a few steps forward, then the black rhino. This continued for maybe 15 minutes, the two pairs horn to horn, in a low intensity struggle for a mud-treatment.

The size difference between the two species was very evident, the huge white rhino bulls dwarfing the smaller black rhinos, but in the end it was persistence that won the day. Field guides (both kinds) will tell you that black rhinos have attitude, and despite being half the size, the mom and calf had twice the will. It took a couple of jackals trotting past to give the white rhinos an honourable(ish) way out, and both abruptly turned away and chased after the jackals, before returning to the business of grazing. The black rhino then made the best of the hard-won wallow.

Van der Merwe wasn't totally cruel though, because, with the light fading fast, a private vehicle joined me at the sighting, and was kind enough to send through a couple of pictures of the tail end of the interaction. These can be seen on the Ivory Tree Facebook page.

Mohammed - Ranger

Son of Mystery

It was the first morning game drive with my guest and the mission was to find lions. I explained to them that the first hour and half of the game drive is to find cats, we took a road called tau link and stopped at the view point to have a look at the view of makwe lake which is the biggest lake or dam in the park. As we were admiring the beauty of nature we heard lions vocalizing and it sounded like they were some were around the dam. We left the view point to investigate the exact location of these cats. We found them lying on the dam wall vocalizing advertising there presence. The sighting was good but not the best because they were just lying down. I took May guest to fish eagle which is one of the picnic site in the park for a coffee break and explained every thing I know about the lions we have just seen.

On our way back we drove past the same lions and they were still lying down but this time they were not singing. We drove around the park looking for more animal identifying some of beautiful bird found in the park. On our way back to the lodge we saw a small brown bird called the Kalahari robin chat hopping on the ground sing melodious songs to us. We were +- 2km away from the lodge and out of no were pop out this lion called mystery son a blond beautiful lion that no one knows who the father of this lion some rangers say his from the western pride. It is still a mystery were these lion comes from and how is he surviving.

Nyiko Nkuna

The Pennant-Winged Nightjar

The Pennant-Winged Nightjar is an intra African migrant that occurs from Nigeria to the Northern parts of South Africa. What’s unique is that the males acquire a striking 9th primary feather during the breeding season. These pennants grow to greater lengths in successive years ( up to twice the body length) .I was extremely lucky to see one of these magnificent birds in the Pilanesberg National Park as this was only the second confirmed sighting by any of the rangers at the lodge, I have been here for 6 years and this was my first sighting!! It was at 04:30 am on Kubu drive near Letsha link. Hopefully I won’t have to wait another 6 years for my next encounter with this beautiful creature of the night!!

Hayley

Guestless Leopard Story

The morning started somewhat differently, a rifle in the bag and no one in the vehicle but me. This morning I was on my way to meet up with some ranger friends from another lodge to go on a bush walk. Setting up for Kubu Dam, the morning air was crisp and still, until I gathered speed with my game viewer. I was wrapped up and clothed with most items available to me in my cupboard as it was a freezing morning. It would take me a good 40 minutes to get me to the rendezvous point with my colleague. With watering eyes and cold ears I was scanning the surrounding areas. As I passed preparing my eyes for the walk ahead and at the same time anticipating something, anything.

Upon approaching the Red Syenite outcrop on Kubu drive I looked it over thoroughly, as the rangers had in the past week been spotting a female leopard with two cubs at this exact spot. I for one had in my two and a half years of driving the park not yet had a leopard sighting here.

The sun had just started appearing over the horizon, and the mist blanketed the valleys. As I drove past Red Syenite the sun disappeared behind the mountain mass, and a new shape caught my eye. Something had moved and then disappeared. A shape appeared out of a cavity in the rocks, accompanied by two smaller shapes… by now my heart was racing…..! It was the very same leopard with her cubs!! They where warming themselves with the rising sun. In all the excitement I started talking, not to myself but to my guests I wish I’d had with me on that drive. After a little chuckle to myself and a thought that always crosses a rangers mind, if only I could share this with some guests, and if only all my drives where like this…

Reluctant to leave the sighting I called it in on my radio to the other rangers on drive. I still spent a few minutes watching the cubs stretch their legs, exploring their surroundings and warming up. The cubs are now four and a half months old and will only be protected by their mom for a few more months to come. I also witnessed I Pied Crow dive-bombing the cubs.

After this awesome sighting I left it in order for the other rangers to come and show their guests this amazing sighting.

M. Malan

Rhino Carcass

As we were driving around the park one afternoon, word got out that a female rhino has been injured. She was badly wounded in a fight with a male rhino who wanted to mate with her. The female was fairly young and did not want to mate with the male so he attacked her. A capture team was called in to dart the female and move her into a boma where she could be closely monitored. After treating her wounds and keeping a close watch on the female, she was released into the park again a couple of days later, seeming to be recovering well. On Sunday afternoon, Nyiko one of our team of rangers, reported a dead rhino on Mankwe way. The dead rhino turned out to be the same rhino that was injured by the rhino bull. The female suffered severe internal injuries from several stab wounds from the male rhino’s horn.

The death of one however creates food for another. The first predators to arrive were the 2 sub-adult male lions of the central pride. These two youngsters stayed at the carcass alone for the first night and ignored the calls from the rest of the pride. Two days later, the two youngsters were joined at the carcass by the rest of the pride. The central pride of lions in Pilanesberg consists of two adult males, two adult females and the two youngsters. Lion social structure calls for the adult males to have the first share of the kill or carcass. After the adult males have finished feeding, the females get a turn and then only the younger lions. It was thus interesting to see the interaction between the 2 adult males and the 2 sub-adults. The females did not stay at the carcass for very long and only made their appearance once or twice. The males however stayed for another 3 days of which the last ones to leave were the two youngsters who only left on the saturday.

After having a meal of about 2 tonnes, the lions disappeared for about two days to go and digest the meat somewhere under a tree and went back to just being normal lions, for whom a nap can never be too short!!!

Story and photo’s by Alisha
Ranger
Ivory Tree Game lodge

A Pilanesberg Story

It is Easter, the school holidays are near and the park is humming with visitors. It is at this time of year that these giant beasts, the elephants also seem to pack up and leave for greener pastures. We know this, that year after year these gentle giants of the Pilanesberg migrate to the wilderness area of the park. There is only one road leading into it, and there is only one road out of it. It is situated in the North-western side of the park.

It is not open to the public, and game-viewers may only skirt the section by driving along Moloto Road. At this time of year, as in years gone by you need some luck to see these elephants, and your best chance is along this road. This is the beauty of the Pilanesberg, the anticipation and build up of what is to be seen over the next rise and around the next corner.

Time will need to play out this game called game viewing. For these mountains and valleys where here a long time ago and with the park and it’s animals they will be here for a long time to come. All we need to do is wait, wait like the rangers and guests before us and in the months to come the Pilanesberg elephants will be sure to come back…

M. Malan

My Lucky Couple

I thought it was going to be an ordinary drive as always, just my two guests and I….

As we departed from the lodge at 4:30 for the evening drive we saw the usual as we see every time- white Rhino, Zebra, Wildebeest and Impala. As the guests were here for their first safari they were very interested in every single thing they saw, but after an hours drive of just seeing the same we stopped stopping for every single plains game.

As I was driving towards fish eagle picnic spot, just before the access, I got a radio in that one of the other rangers had spotted a leopard on Red Syanite Hill… and that is were our real drive began.

It was 6pm and so I informed my guests that we will go for our sundowners later, but now we will go see the leopard.I did warn them that we were not going to stop for any animal till we get to the leopard-as it is very rare to see one.

As luck may have it on the way we spotted a Kori Bustard-one of the heaviest birds in South Africa that is capable of flight- about 8 metres of the road, and of course we had to stop for that. It was quite a nice view of the bird walking around in the plains.

A minute or so of admiring it went, time was ticking, for the leopard was lying at that moment but as soon as it would get up it would walk behind the mountain and it would disappear for good. On the way I had a few obstacles such as Zebra crossing and Impala deciding to feed right on the road sides making it impossible to pass them and the problem was that we still had quite a road bit to travel to get there. Finally we arrived at the sight with only one other Ivory Tree Vehicle there. I positioned the vehicle to have a clear view of this leopard (which was a good 500m away) and switched of the engine. Just 30 seconds after switching of the engine the leopard got up looked at us for few seconds and walked slowly down and behind the mountain with flashes going of left, right and centre. My guests absolutely loved it, and so we drove of satisfied.

As we drove I though luckily if we only see plains game all the way home, we at least had one satisfying sighting.

Then suddenly out of the blue some image caught my eye. Two rock looking things in the distance on the foot of a mountain a road away. Looking through the binoculars I spotted to rhinos and to my delight they were two Black Rhinos. I hurried up to the spot and called it in. We sat there looking at the rhino -that were about 300m of the road-that were looking at us. This was only my second time that I had been lucky enough to see Black Rhino in this park, so I was pretty excited to find it.

Finally we had time to go for our sundowners. Now it was getting quite dark. Just a half a kilometre before the hide we found a lovely hippo out of water that is quiet rare to find. As we were admiring him I got a call that there was an elephant on one of the roads close by…so of we went for another hunt down for the next great animal. As we got to the road the bull elephant just started to cross in front of us and the other vehicles that were there. He was a nice big bull and it was excellent to watch him walk past and start feeding. As we got closer he got abit agitated so we completely stopped and carried on watching him as he munched away. All one could hear is the munching. Finally we decided to get one drink in so we made a U-turn and went back to the road that would lead us to our hide.

At the exact spot where I got the call about the elephant, I got another call saying that they found some Lions. This time they were abit further than the elephant. I asked my guest if they don’t mind skipping sundowners and just going to see the lions. They were more than happy to do so.This time as we got to the spot were they were seen, they had disappeared into the thickets. The other two guides and I search around the area for a good 15 minutes, I thought that my luck had changed and that I was about to doubt seeing them….
Then we got a good call, the two sub-adult males of the central pride were walking on a road not to far from us. As we got there they just walked past my vehicle went abit of the road and just lay down. We stood there watching them for about 10 minutes as they lazed around, before they got up and walked off.

By now we were running quiet late to get to the lodge. With a quick haste we started our satisfied journey back home. As we went past we just saw herds of glowing eyes close and far from the road, almost as if someone lit amber coals along the way.
As we started dinner we enjoyed talking about our 4 out of 5 big five sighting and were convinced that we will find the Buffalo the next day…. sadly my luck ran out… At least we had a great encounter with some breeding herd of elephants-which is a story all on its own.

Monika Bydlinski- Guide

Leopard Story

We were watching the sun set when we heard lions roaring from a thicket about a hundred meters from the road.

We all got excited at the prospect of seeing them and were about to wait patiently for them to appear when I heard on the radio that a leopard had just been spotted just round the corner from where we were. I talked it over with my guests, we decided to try and find the leopard since no one had seen one before.

However, when we got there we just got a glimpse of her disappearing into some bushes surrounded by an open plain. We waited for about 5 minutes and decided to go round to the other side of the plain to try a different angle. When we got there it was dark so I was using the spotlight to search the plain, we could see a couple of springbok grazing ignorantly about 10 meters from the road. The beam of the spotlight spun round the plain behind them and we saw the leopard lying flat staring intently at the springbok. I quickly switched of the spotlight as to not ruin her camouflage. In the moonlight you could see the outline of the springbok standing completely unaware just a few meters from us and the light patch in the grass which marked the stalking leopard.

Everybody was totally silent as to not alert either of them. In a flash of movement the leopard ran and pounced on the springbok pulling it down. I quickly put the spotlight back on the pair, I was expecting noise but there was no sound at all. She was only a young female, the springbok looked bigger then she was, she lay there for a few minutes holding it by the throat in her jaws. There was a long pause before the other springbok realized what was happening.

At this point the other plains game became alert, and started to snort along with the whistling springbok, and then we could hear the two lions from earlier roaring in the background. Finally she let go of the lifeless body and was panting to get her strength back, she did this for about ten minutes whilst licking her prize and grunting.

A couple of jackals appeared on the scene and were sniffing around and wailing to each other. None of us in the car could believe what we were experiencing. As we discussed the sighting she stood up and started looking around. We all realized that she was probably going to move her kill as she was out in the open being pestered by the jackals and the lions were so close.

She picked it up by the throat and started dragging it beneath her, away from us across the plain, making load grunts of exertion. It was quite a slow progress and she stopped every ten meters or so to breath and look around her. When she was in the middle of the plain we drove round to the other side this was about 300meters from where she had originally killed.

We could see her coming so we sat near her path and waited watching her laborious journey. Eventually she pulled it on the road in front of us dropping it to study her surroundings, she was tired but the lions were still roaring close by so she needed to get it to relative safety of the deep thicket on the other side of the road. She bent down and finished dragging it across the road and started to disappear into the vegetation beside us.

Eventually we could no longer see her, we could just hear the rustling as she was moving away, leaving us completely overwhelmed.

Becca

Male Lion on Wilderbeest Carcass

It was one of the coldest mornings we had, think it went down to about -4 round about 6 o clock in the morning. As we departed the lodge all the rangers discussed where they were going to go some said west others said they would stay around close to the lodge.

Game drive started and I wanted the four male lions, they are always close to the lodge or at Malatse Dam and that’s not to far away either.

As went down moraleng we came close to our bush braai access road and that’s where I saw 2 young females eating away on the wilderbeest. They must have just caught it cause there was still a lot of meat on them.

Was very exciting to see this and what made it better a big male lion came and started to feed as well. There were vocalizations in the back round lions everywhere so it was a great morning and I think the guests forgot about the cold for awhile.

Ranger Yolande

White Rhino In The Pilanesberg

If you ever wanted a very good chance of seeing white rhino then the Pilanesberg is the place to be.

Nobody knows the actual amount of white rhino there is in this beautiful mountain terrain, but we know this amazing mammal does well and is well looked after.

The white rhino can weigh up to two tons making it the second biggest land mammal in the world, the horn of a rhino grows about 8 cm a year and contains mostly of a hair like fiber just like our own nails on a human body. The female rhino can live in crashes of about 6 to 14 at a time while your adult bulls are solitary.

The female rhino will reach sexual maturity when they are about 6 or 7 years old, a single calf is born and can weigh up to 40 to 65 kg. The mother rhino is very protective over her calf and will defend it no matter what

Fire Bombing On Hippo Loops

On Thursday the 12th May the Pilanesberg looked as if it was under attack! The distant drone of 6 Huey helicopters and 4 bomber aircraft signaled the beginning of the end.

The area of Hippo Loops had been set alight some 20 minutes before. The whole operation was organized by North West Parks and Tourism Board and Working on Fire for an International Conference on Fire which was being held for that week at Sun City.

With the approaching aircraft and the impressive sound that comes with it, one could not help but become a child again.

With the 6 choppers landing and preparing their monsoon buckets (capacity of 1 250 litres) for filling there were still the bombers flying overhead. In no time the choppers were up and off to Mankwe Dam some 100 meters away, we were right in the middle of it!

After a few onslaughts from the helicopters the bombers were called into action. With a payload of 1000 litres they lined up and came in low, really low, each bomber only having one chance to maximize its water bombing before heading back to Pilanesberg International Airport. Within 2 minutes the fire had been cut to half, the rest was now up to the helicopters. With the dying fire and the helicopters flying overhead we were again reminded how close we were to the action by the spray of water being released from the monsoon buckets.

The fire had been doused in just over an hour, very impressive stuff taking the terrain into account. It was off home after the display and as it has been said many times before, just another day in the office.

Mike Malan