A couple of photos from my first two days in South Africa

So this is it. The big one for this year, two weeks following South Africa’s Garden Route.

Right now I’m sat at a stone stable right on the coast of the Indian Ocean surrounded by the cliffs and forests of Tsitsikamma National Park. Its an area of outstanding beauty and we arrived yesterday, but that is for later. 

Today, I’m going to share some photos from my first two days here. The first is from Avoca River Cabins overlooking the farms and the Orange River. This was home for the first two nights. 

We arrived mid afternoon and I wasted no time in dumping my bags and heading down to the river where I jumped straight in. I hadn’t intended to jump in, I’d intended to lower myself into a kayak, but the unseen slimed covered steps just under the water meant that I suddenly found myself flying!

 I did haul myself into the kayak and spent a pleasant hour or so paddling up and down the passable parts of the river.

The remaining photos will be from game drives in Addo Elephant park and Scotica Private Reserve. This was an incredible experience, with the animals literally within touching distance at times. I’d been lucky to see lions in Kenya and we were fairly close. Particular to inquisitive cubs that walked around the vehicles. But that was nothing compared to this. 

I love this photo of the lion. It may be one of my favourite photos I’ve ever taken.

We finished the night with a barbecue under firelight, surrounded by tiki torches and bonfires before heading back to the entrance in the pitch dark. Here we were handed flashlights to search for more sightings. We struck lucky, with a hippo discovered hiding in the bushes as well as smaller critters like hares and marmots scurrying about the scrub.