Guests at Buffalo Ridge Safari Lodge had a surprise visit from an opportunistic elephant, who simply couldn’t resist the cool, crystal clear, swimming pool water on a hot spring day in Madikwe Game Reserve. 

Photographed by 18 year old Tom Rudolphie of The Netherlands.

 Buffalo Ridge is a community owned safari lodge in the beautiful Madikwe Game Reserve of northern South Africa, near the Botswana border. I love this area.

For more reviews of lodges inside Madikwe on this blog see:

http://www.safaritart.com/?p=618

http://www.safaritart.com/?p=248

Do you speak Russian? If so, perhaps you can tell me what the comment below says. It’s nice to know this site has readers from all over the world, even if I can’t always understand what they say!

These extraordinary leopard pictures were captured by photography student Casey Gutteridge at the Santago Rare Leopard Project in Hertfordshire. Copyright of http://solentnews.biz/. 

Seemingly unaware of the beast, the mouse diced with death when it tucked into the leopard’s lunch. The mischievous rodent grabbed at scraps of meat thrown into the African Leopard’s enclosure.  

 

 

Gutteridge said that even the keeper who’d thrown the meat into the enclosure had never seen anything like it before.  The project owner Jackie James added: ‘It was so funny to see - Sheena batted the mouse a couple of times to try to get it away from her food, but the determined little thing took no notice and just carried on.’ Sheena was brought in to the Santago Rare Leopard Project from a UK zoo when she was just four months old. She is one of 14 big cats in the private collection started by Jackie’s late husband Peter in 1989.

Lion action at Tuningi on 31 August 2009

These curious young lions and lionesses came to see the goings-on as guests from Tuningi Safari Lodge enjoyed their sundowner game drive drinks & snacks in the Madikwe Game Reserve. Madikwe Collection game rangers and guests watched from a safe distance as the lions investigated the contents of the cooler boxes.

“Evening game drives include a short stop for bushveld snacks and sundowner drinks, allowing guests to stretch their legs and, in this case, get close and personal with the ‘locals’.” - commented Grant Marcus, Senior game ranger and photographer of these pictures.

I had a great time at Tuningi, while I was writing the Exclusives Safari Lodges of South Africa book. During that visit an elephant came to drink out of the dam just a few metres from the swimming pool.

They have an excellent kids safari programme too, and a separate area for children on safari to avoid them get too noisy for other guests.

Tuningi Safari Lodge is nice an intimate with four luxury suites and a further two family cottages with two bedrooms and adjoining lounge, kitchenette and dining room. Little Tuningi is a part of the main lodge but can be booked as stand alone accommodation for those that want the place to themselves. Little Tuningi has a double room and a family unit as well as a private pool and boma (for outdoor meals around the fire).

For rates contact: safaritart@wydahtours.com.

When this baby hippo losts its mother, it found the next best thing, a giant tortoise.

It is not often that I get the chance to sleep within the sounds of snoring elephant, but I did at the Knysna Elephant Park guest house, Elephant Lodge. I also had the chance to ride one of the elephants, all of whom have been rescued and now make up a tight knit herd. Knysna Elephant Park are one of the good guys of elephant back riding, with strong ethics and the welfare of their animals paramount.

When Harry met Carrie

Harry is the dominant bull of the herd and the largest at about 3 metres tall. I felt like a pimple on his back, my legs didn’t even reach the end of the blanket. 

Harry is enormous, and I had my arms firmly clasped around my softly-spoken guide. Harry was born in 1989, but arrived at Knysna Elephant Park with Sally when he was 5 years old - still a real youngster. Harry is a gentle giant and shows tenderness towards the babies, which is apparantly unusual for a bull elephant.

Harry and I were going along nicely when he decided it was time for bed and started trotting across the field towards his bed chamber. The Knysna Elephant Park ele’s have very nice quarters, each with their own stable (somewhat larger than for a horse) filled with leafy branches to strip and a bed of hay and straw. When an elephant trots, especially one the size of Harry, you know about it and I felt rather wobbly and liable to fall off at any minute. 

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When people say Africa isn’t for cissies….these photos explain what they mean. But you can still be a cissie and come to Africa, just don’t go camping in the bush on your own.

This is probably the biggest bull elephant I have ever seen and these people were lucky to come out of this situation alive.

I had my own very close encounter with a family of elephant in a 4×4 with the manager of a reserve near Kruger. A huge matriach was in front of us, a mother and baby suddenly appeared at our rear and thick bush lined the track, then they both charged!

The manager did the only thing possible, which was to call their bluff with loud hoots, shouts and revving towards them. The ele’s charged again and again, trumpeting loudly and shaking their great heads. I never took a single breath. I was transfixed with fear and helplessness. We couldn’t back down - that would have been suicide - and the elephant didn’t really want trouble,  they were just making it clear that we should be more respectful in future.  So they acquiesced and departed in a huff.

In this case, the ele decided to trash the camp. If that monster was coming towards me I wouldn’t be standing there smiling into the camera.

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If you ever thought lions look like large pussy cats, take a look at these photos taken by a holidaymaker in the Krugersdorp area of South Africa.

The final picture shows you just how much power and destruction lions are capable of when they are pissed off.  Moral of the story; however macho man thinks he is, he’s got nothing on the king of the jungle!

If you want to go somewhere that you are almost guaranteed to see lions, click on the Big Five tag on the right hand side of this website , or email ‘find me lions’  to safaritart@wydahtours.com .