Tula Game Reserve

Luckily I managed to get out riding in the mini bus and jumped in the car with my cousin Chris instead. We had a quick stop on route a shopping mall to pick up a few supplies and of course have a quick bite to eat at the KFC. There were about 15 people working behind the counters and another 15 in the kitchen. They seem to have more people working at all stores than we are used to. That said I am not sure it speeds up the process at all. They are after all still working on South African time.

Arriving at the game reserve Chris took me for a bit of drive in the rental car around the reserve where we very cautiously approached a mother rhino and her baby. Although they may look very peaceful when they are grazing it doesn't take much to anger them into a charge. Especially when the young rhinos are around. We did stop very close though, wind down the windows, and take a few pics. There were also wildebeest and zebra covering the field. As this was my first time seeing this animals in South Africa I was in complete awe of them. I could have sat there all day just watching them. But we had other things to do (like a wedding rehearsal) and made our way on to meet everyone else. On the way though we did stop to take a peak at the hippos (or rather just their noses in the water).




That night we did a night game drive in the land rovers and had a wonderful tour by the guides where we taught us about the animals and vegetation of the reserve. The sun was setting at this point and it was getting hard to see the animals so we went down to the hippo pond and had a few beers and snacks overlooking the water. At night by shining a light across the land you can see the reflection of animal's eyes. If its green it means they are herbivores, red is carnivores, and orange means you are looking at the animal from the side. As it was pitch black everywhere else you really can't see them until the light finds them. All of a sudden on the way back we saw 20 eyes from a heard of zebra's all light up green. Really remarkable. Also on the way back we saw more rhino and lucked out by seeing the Hippo's walking back to the water. They only tend to come out of the water at night to feed and even though they are massive its still not easy to find them in the dark.

After a nice meal and a few drinks back at the lodge we all decided to call it night as the following day was the wedding.

The morning of the wedding we had another game drive booked for those who thought they would have time to do both. Even though I was in the wedding party there was still time to go out and see a few more animals. Our first destination the far end of the reserve to go in search of the giraffes. We found them with ease (one as the game ranger knew where to look for them and two they are just ridiculously big) and parked up right next to them. They had a bit of a look but remained un-phased by the land rover we were in. We took a ton of photos until something spooked them and they ran off.



With them running off it scared the wildebeests who also took off in a run. That just started a chain reaction with the waterbucks, zebras, and ostrich's all tearing off into the bush. While we were watching these run we had the engine turned off and didn't notice the mother and baby rhino come up within 10m of the car. However we did notice when the male rhino made a loud grunting noise, stopped in his tracks, and started giving us the evil eye. I have never seen anyone start a car and floor it out of the way in my life. The rhino was just giving us a warning to get out of the way or suffer the consequences.

We decided to go off and find what might have scarred all the animals but after a while we concluded that it was probably us. oops. We did however find the African buffalos which trust me are more than a glorified cow as people may think. They can be extremely temperamental but that day they just relaxed in the grass. They were the only animal that didn't seem to be running away in all the chaos. With that we made our way back to the lodge to get ready for the wedding.