Pilanesburg - Sun City (29 Jul 06)

Finally, after nearly 6 months in this country... I finally made it to a safari.... well, this trip was supposed to have taken place a couple of months back... but Royston and I never got down to it.... On this trip, Royston and I were joined by Ghazali, the assistant station manager for singapore airlines in Johannesburg. He was heading off to Cape Town for his posting and this was the last opportunity to go on a trip with him.... We called him up on Friday and asked if he wanted to join... and he was game for it....

Anyway, I was really looking forward to this trip as it would be my first experience in a wildlife gamepark, and was hoping to see the "Big Five" animals (i.e. Lion, Leopard, Elephant, Buffalo & Rhino) The park's called "Pilanesburg National Park", which is about an 1.5hour drive from Pretoria...., and another good thing about the place is that it is just next door to the resort "Sun City".

Well, anyway, to get a good view of the animals, Royston, Ghazali and I left for Pilanesburg at 5.20am in the morning from my place... and started making our way there.... We got there at about 645am, and paid our entrance fee (R20 per person = S$4-5), and started our sight-seeing... here are some pics..

welcome all..... there are several gates to enter the reserve.. but we came in by this one...Roy and Ghaz getting ready to enter the park

a view of the sun rising as we entered the park
a zebra that we spotted quite early into our drive into the park.

some other animals having their breakfast

part of the view at Pilanesburg

we followed this strictly....

this guy was spotted by Royston... he earned 100 points for spotting it so close to my car.. hehe...

there were hotair balloon rides available at the park, but Ghaz heard that they cost R2,600 for a ride... we decided to give that a miss....

come on... throw a peanut!!


this guy just started walking across the road.. we got a shock as it was really close to us....

keep very quiet..... wild elephants on the loose...