Beautiful Gate 2023

 This will likely be my last post until I return. Not enough internet now to keep the blog going. 

 I only posted pictures yesterday.  Still was battling fatigue and busy safari days with minimal time to sit down and collect my thoughts.  Yesterday our first safari was at 5 am.  We saw more rhinos and a few elephants.  My favourite was the shot of the elephant against the backlight of the sunset at the end of our 2nd safari.  Loved the giraffes too.  We had our 3rd safari today and got up closer to them.  The elephant today also gave himself a dirt shower which was very interesting. I’ll see if I can get some of the videos I did on my iPhone onto YouTube so I can post them here.  Food was fantastic at Ndaka.  We’ll have to cut down a bit from now on to balance it all out.   It was another long bus ride today.  We left Ndaka around 10 am and arrived here at Beautiful Gate around 4 pm.  I had my own room at Ndaka, now we are all 3 girls sharing a room.  It’s a bit tight, but not undoable.  Internet access here w...

 

 Got up at 4 am to be ready for our 5 am safari #1. Saw Lions, black rhinos—a pair, only 4000 left in the world. giraffes, wildebeast, zebras—such a great start. Back for breakfast at 8 am, next safari at 4 pm!

 Lots of delays today. When we left Heathrow, there was a minor medical emergency and a party had to leave before we took off. Took forever to get their bags out of the hold.  When we came into Johannesburg there was a false start landing so we had to circle around a second time before landing! Long waits to get through customs but seemed to be easy. Then we picked up the bags! Our medical supplies were scrutinized for an hour. So the planned first safari at 4 pm did not happen as we didn’t get to Ndaka until 9 pm. We did see a beautiful sunset on our 5 hour bus ride from Johannesburg though. Beautiful dinner and now getting to our rooms and up for a 5 am safari!!