Third day of safari at the Pilanesberg National Park

We are at the Pilanesberg National Park in South Africa and we woke up this morning at 5.30 am, it was still dark outside and the air was cold; so we took a wise decision: having breakfast inside Dr. Livingstone.

At 6.30am we are ready to leave, we have already loaded the car because tonight we sleep at another campsite.

We are undecided on the roads to do this morning, it is really a lottery, impossible to know where the animals are; we decide to take the main road, the Tshwene Drive, we have never covered it all.

In the first part of the road the grass is very high so it is really difficult to spot something but we check it well and, at a certain point, we see a white rhino that is busy grazing but, when it hears the sound of our car for a moment it stops and looks in our direction, but then it calms down and starts to have breakfast again.

We drive along the Tshwene Drive to the detour of Hippo Drive, a dirt road that leads near the shore of the Mankwe Dam and then along a river that, however, is reduced to a trickle at this time of year.

This morning the hippos are not seen at the river but there are several aquatic birds: the African spoonbills and a yellow-billed stork that are busy fishing, while some cormorants, a sniper and a gray heron seem to observe the situation.

There is a wonderful light, the sun has risen recently and has colored the sky with the warm colors of dawn, the images of birds are reflected in the small body of water, around us there is a silence broken only by the wind noise and some lure of some animal.

A beautiful scene, it seems to be in a painting and we would never want to leave, but we must continue our exploration of the Pilanesberg National Park.

We take a short stretch of the Kubu Drive and then turn off following the signs for the Letsha Road; here in the past few days we have seen a black rhino, the only one so far, we try to look for it but today there is no trace of it, on the other hand, near a small puddle, there are some very photogenic water birds.

We intend to stop at the observation hide that looks right onto the Mankwe Dam, but when we get to the parking lot, we realize that the shed is gone, it seems they are rebuilding it; it is a pity since it offered a privileged sighting point.

We continue our safari and take the Mankwe Way, we have already covered this track in recent days, on paper this is one of the roads that offers top sightings; then reality is often different, so we are cautious with expectations.

It is very scenic and runs along some hills formed by large boulders eroded over millennia; each of these is potentially a wonderful observation point for a leopard, we observe them carefully even with binoculars, but we cannot pass every single stone to X-rays, it would take days just for this.

We continue and at a certain point, on the branch of a bush we see a beautiful violet eared waxbill, it is very colorful and we had never seen it before, so we note it on our check list.

We want coffee and so we go to the Fish Eagle picnic area, we park, take our thermos of hot water, Nescafé, milk and sugar and enter the picnic area; we look for a wooden table that has a view of the Mankwe Dam and we make coffee.

We enjoy the serenity and the silence of this place while we drink our coffee, but at a certain point we hear the sound of leaves trampled and we immediately look around, it is true that the picnic area is fenced but, if it wants, any animal, including the big cats could enter.

At one point we see a hazel grouse heading towards us, it is him that makes all that noise!

Not happy with having made us worrying about nothing, it comes closer and looks at us, it probably hopes we have something to eat, surely here in the picnic area it finds plenty of crumbs, but with us it is not lucky, we only have coffee.

After a while we return to our car and continue our safari along the remaining part of the Mankwe Way and, after a few hundred meters, we find a beautiful white rhino; what to say here at the Pilanesberg we have satisfied the desire for rhinos.

We drive the Motlobo Drive and the Thlware and here we see several giraffes and zebras on the street that, when we approach them, they look at us a bit perplexed, they are too funny.

From here we take the Kubu Drive where we find an enormous herd of zebras that crosses the road and is heading to drink; often on safari we tend to ignore zebras, most people are more fascinated by big cats or other animals like the elephant or rhinos, but if you stop to look at them, the zebras are really beautiful.

We do the tour we did yesterday along the Tshukudu and Ntsho Drive, today must be the day of the zebras because even here there is a herd that is walking along the roadside, we pass them one by one and they look at us but are not afraid, luckily; we do not stop at the observation hut because we have seen that there is not much to observe today, maybe we return later, and we continue towards the Tlou Dam where there are some warthogs that drink and roll in the mud and some kingfishers intent on fishing.

We continue along the Tlou Drive and the Kgabo Drive and we go to the Pilanesberg Center, it's time for lunch and we came here because it's our intention to have lunch on the wooden terrace overlooking the permanent pool.

The restaurant menu is limited, but you certainly don't come here to taste delicacies, but for the terrace, for sightings and for the tranquility of this place; we order two hamburgers that are not bad at all.

While we have lunch at the puddle, kudus, impalas, zebras and other herbivores alternate; they come here to drink but also to lick the salt that is placed right in front of the terrace.

Some warthog families take turns at the puddle, even the guinea fowls are present in large numbers and run around just like hens do.

Only a big cat would be missing for the perfect sighting but unfortunately they do not show up, it is destiny that here at the Pilanesberg they do not show themselves to us or that we see them only from a distance like yesterday.

After lunch we linger a bit on the terrace, it's so beautiful here that we would remain all afternoon, but our safari awaits us.

We return to the Tshukudu and Ntsho Drive and find four herds of elephants, one is in the street and we have to stop and wait for all the members of the pack to cross, it is never a good idea to divide a pack by passing through it, especially if there are puppies as in this case; the other three packs have already reached the river and are drinking.

We continue our exploration of the park and head North, we have never explored this part and our camping tonight is right in this direction.

We don't see very much, only so many zebras and kudus, but along the Dithabaneng we see a wonderful Verreaux eagle; unfortunately the first puddle along this road is dry so we don't see many animals.

We reach the Malatse Dam where there is a fairly large lake; here obviously all the animals are concentrated: there are many elephants that are drinking and splashing themselves with mud, some instead are busy eating grass and bushes; there are also several hippos, some are immersed in water, others are lying on the beach of the lake; obviously there are also several water birds such as cormorants, geese, herons and many others.

Also the landscape is spectacular, in the water and on the shore there are the skeletons of several dead trees, that probably were killed by some flood; they are very scenic in the photographs and are an excellent vantage point for some birds that fish, such as herons and kingfishers.

First we go to the observation shed and then we drive along the road that goes around the puddle, to see it from every angle.

From here we go back along the Dithabaneng and head towards the Bakgatla Resort and Campsite; we will spend our last night at the Pilanesberg National Park on the campsite here.

At the camping there are very few cars and tents, we look for the pitch we like best and then we prepare Dr. Livingstone for the night, we open the table and our armchairs and we are ready for an aperitif, but we have to go to the bar to buy something fresh.

We sit down and plan our day tomorrow; we have to go to the Marakele National Parkbut first we have to go back to Rustenberg to buy the fridge, since ours broke.

While we are there enjoying this relaxation talking about tomorrow, we are witnessing a combined attack of some vervet monkeys to the tent of some South Africans; they are really terrible and implacable, nothing can be left unattended because they do not forgive, fortunately as soon as the sun goes down they disappear, because they go to sleep on the trees.

We cook on the fire and while we have dinner we enjoy a spectacular starry sky.