Day 2 – Gotta Catch ’em All

We are much more rested this morning! The sun is a very early riser here, so we were up quite early by about 6am local time, snuck in one last use of that amazing bathroom and had a bath, packed up and was treated to one last amazing meal from TiTi and his team with breakfast and coffee. The Altho Villa was such a special place, so it was sad to leave, but when 9 o’clock came around we were packed into a van and ready to start our trek to Marataba Explorers camp in Marakele with our guide Natasha. Natasha is from Journey By Designs and has treated us with an exceptional amount of knowledge and information, teaching us all just so much about South Africa and its people and culture. The similarity and differences to back home in Australia has been fascinating. We share some similar challenges, but there are some that are completely unimaginable for Australians. The scenery is also reminiscent to our regional scenery, with vast plots of land, hills and small trees, but very dry and dusty. Driving passed so many large farms with different wildlife has been so cool to see! They’re all farmed animals so far, so nothing truly wild, but seeing paddocks of antelope is novel.

While driving through the different suburbs or provinces has been pretty confronting. Seeing the impact that the corona virus has had on the already struggling economy and infrastructure has been quite difficult to see. The drive was long, but I learnt a lot and got to see some incredible things, including a mob of baboons along the freeway! But after some time, we eventually pulled up at Marataba, where we were greeted by friendly faces and open arms.

We met the manager of the accommodation, some of the staff and out guide, then was lead down a path into the heart of the resort where the jewel of the lodge is – the waterhole. Immediately we were greeted by a warthog drinking its fill, only metres from where we were standing and signing paperwork! This waterhole is situated right in front of the main communal area of the lodge, where you eat all your meals and have a few bevies, so this is where we will be spending a lot of our time! After signing our life away, we were shown to our tents. Drew and I have the tent furthest down the park, which means that we are right on the perimeter of the electric fence (which is mostly just to stop elephants from walking through the camp, but most other animals can jump it). Being so close to the perimeter means that we have an almost unobstructed view of the plains. This is how we were able to spot 3 zebras making their way to the waterhole only minutes after dropping our bags at the room. We also had a visit from a couple of hornbills, also known as the Zazu bird (Lion King).

Our view is spectacular, where the plains meet the horizon there is the Waterberg mountain range, which is one of the oldest known ranges in the world. It is a combination of forested slopes and steep cliff faces that change colour with the sun. Jed, Maria, Drew and myself positioned ourselves on beanbags on the deck overlooking the waterhole for the next hour or so while waiting for our guide Stefan to pick us up for our drive. This is when we spotted our first giraffes – off in the distance and quickly slipped behind some trees, but thats another ticked off the list before we have even left the lodge!

At about 4.15, we were getting ready to leave for our first drive on the reserve with Stef, taking a couple of videos for social media when Sue comes jogging down towards my tent saying there were cheetahs! And there they are, two of the four cheetahs on the reserve, walking together passed the lodge, marking territory as they went. There are two males and two females on the park who travel separately, and they’re not very common to see, so boy do we feel lucky!

Now it was time to pile into the open air vehicle which had three rows of three seats plus the guide. Stef in the front, Sue and Shaz in the first row, myself and Drew in the middle and Jed and Maria bringing up the back. I’m not going to go into detail of every encounter we had, because this drive was extremely successful and we are extremely lucky to have seen all the animals that we did. In a quick list, we met:

• Elephants
• Hippos
• Warthogs
• More giraffes
• More zebras
• A bush squirrel
• Impala
• White rhinos
• Wildebeest

This is all on day one! I cannot believe it. We were out in the car from about 4.30 until perhaps 7.30, which is a drive we will be doing nightly. After all this excitement, we came back to the lodge for a briefing on tomorrows rhino tagging work and a dinner of ostrich pie, roast chicken and veggies, and pavlova. I cannot tell you how excited I am for tomorrow! It’ll be an amazing experience, so I hope you come back to read about it.