Safari in South Africa and Botswana

One thing that I was most excited about when Mrs Maynard told me about their trip was the safari that we would be going on.
This was a 11 day trip where we actually camped out in the wild with all the animals around us. I was a little scared but Tim told me that we would be safe in our tents.

We did a 2 day trip to another National Park called Kruger. Kruger is so big our guide told us it is about the size of Wales. How crazy is that.

 

We saw so many animals through out the 2 days. So many more than I though we would. Are you ready for the list. (I think this will test Miss Van Rooyen or Miss Sinclair with there animals signs now. Lets see how they do)
Elephants, zebra, wildbeast, buffalo,gnu,hyena,impala,kudu, warthog,giraffes, lions, leopards, hippo's, monkeys, baboons, monkeys, wild dogs, crocodiles, rhino and quite a few more including lots of beautiful birds.

The lion came so very close and walked right by our jeep on the road. I was really so scared but luckily it didn't take any notice of me or us in our big jeep. I wonder if this lion has ever seen a bear before? The size of his paws were so big. Just one paw was nearly the size of me.

After leaving Kruger we went over to Botswana which is the country next to South Africa to a very special place call the Okavango Delta.
Botswana is quite similar to South Africa with the climate but can be a little warmer which Mrs Maynard was happy about.
The money they use over here is Pula. Amran can you tell everyone what the flag colours are for Botswana? Maybe a tricky one for you?

Here in Botswana we had a lovely couple of days camping again in the wild. To get to our camp site we had to go in special boats called mokoros. They are quite like canoes but made out of wood and pushed along by men that stand at the back of the boat with extremely long wooden poles who push us and steer us in the right directions. They are called Polers.  We could only take a few clothes for the days that we were at this camp site so we had to pack just a few T-shirts and shorts into a black plastic bag.
We had a little campsite set up with just 4 tents. Every night our guide Lloyd would cook our dinner on a camp stove and we would sit around the fire eating and listing to the animals around us.

During the days were very relaxed learning how to pole the mokoros, writing our diaries and swimming in the delta.
The water was so very fresh that we could have drunk it. We decided not too as it could have given us poorly tummies which would have very nice while we were there. We did did very early morning walking Safaris (we left at 6am) but didn't see too many animals which I was quite happy about.

One evening we went for a mokoro ride to see the sunset and we saw some more elephants. It was so peaceful sitting in the mokoro on the water seeing them having there dinner and literally eating a whole tree.

Mrs Maynard told me about our scenic flight that we were going to do on our last day. A flight in a small plane with only 6 seats. How cool! Let me tell you cool isn't a word to describe this. It was AMAZING!

I was allowed to sit in the pilots seat for a while and pretend to fly the plane which was fun I though of Lukes Daddy who Mrs Maynard said was a pilot. Has anybody else sat in a pilots seat before?

The flight was so much fun although a little bumpy which made Mrs Maynard scream quite a lot which was funny. We got to see yet more animals and take in how big the Delta was. We even saw the area where we got into our mokoros on the first day.

Well Year2  this is my last blog from South Africa and Botswana as tomorrow we are off to Thailand. Have any of you been there? Tim and Mrs Maynard are going to be doing some diving so of course I will be sure to get some more pictures and tell you know what we are doing.

Bye for now
Buster xx