On Thursday night, we stayed at a hotel right at the Johannesburg airport. On Friday morning we woke up and went over to a pick up point to take a shuttle over to a little airport next to the Johannesburg airport. The flight to the wilderness was supposed to leave at 10 a.m. but did not leave until about 11 a.m. It was a pretty small plane, seating about 10 people - I think there were 8 on board. They warned us there were no bathrooms on board but it was not bad as it was only an hour flight. We were headed to Madigwe National Park which is Northwest of Johannesburg very close to the Botswana border. The reason we picked this area for a safari was that it was supposed to be one of the largest game parks in South Africa (75,000 hectares) that is malaria free. Neither of us wanted to be bothered with malaria pills or with worrying about getting malaria.
Anyway, once we landed in Madigwe, we realized we were definitely in the wilderness. The Madigwe airport consisted of an airstrip - that is it! A friendly young man in a large open air jeep was there to pick us up. His name was Neil and he was actually our guide for the entire weekend. We hopped in the back of the jeep after putting on sun screen and hats and we were off! It was a lot hotter than Cape Town! It think the temperatures were in the 90's whereas Cape Town has not gone beyond the 70's most of the trip and is usually in the low to mid 60's. So a big shock to the system.
It wasn't long before we started spotting animals! I was so shocked as I thought we would have to be off road before that happened. Anyway, on the drive from the "airport" to the lodge, we saw zebras, giraffes, elephants, rhinos, zebras, wildebeasts and wart hogs! It was fabulous. We actually got our money's worth in the first hour.
When we arrived at the lodge we were greeted by one of the employees and taken across a swinging bridge. The main area of the lodge consisted of a big, beautiful open air dining area and lobby. Our accomodation was a separate grass roofed cottage that had a cement floor but was totally open air. It had two single beds close together and a big bathroom and outdoor shower. The only thing that we didn't really appreciate was that the toilet had no door. Kind of awkward! At night they closed up the front and sides of our cottage with canvas and screens and it was actually air conditioned and had a fan. All in all it was super comfortable.
Upon arrival we had a delicious lunch and then explored the property. There were all these signs saying we were doing so at our own risk but we felt pretty safe because there were fences all around the lodge. There was a sister lodge about a 10 minute walk away that has a watering hole with a lookout post. We went there and happily watched some elephants drinking and interacting with each other.
At 4 p.m. we left for our first "evening ride" which is a 3 to 4 hour ride around the park searching for wildlife. Neil ,the guide, has been doing this work for 6 years and is very good at it. He can spot tracks and knows what they are from. He can spot drag marks and usually knows what has killed what. Also, all of the guides in the park keep in touch with each other constantly by short wave radio. Everyone cooperates with everyone else for sightings and so on. It was actually really exciting. It was like we were on a hunting expedition but we didn't know what we were hunting or where to find it. But then there would be some exciting chatter on the radio and Neil would be off like a shot to where a sighting was. He usually didn't tell us until he was sure we were going to see something. The guides actually talked to each other in code names for the animals as they never wanted us to get too excited.
During the trip we saw many lions, had a close encounter with an elephant and a hyena and saw many other types of antelope and deer etc. etc. We also saw many more of the giraffes, zebras, rhinos etc. that we saw on the first day. Our meals back at the lodge were gourmet and were pretty well done but not totally to my liking. They actually were really into serving us wild game. I tried to be a sport about it but since my childhood have never liked the taste of wild meat. I must say though the homemade bread and desserts were excellent.
Each day we were woken at 5:30 a.m. by Neil and had to leave by 6:00. That was either a 3 or 4 hour drive. Then in the afternoon we went on the 4:00 p.m. drive. It was a very busy, but very enjoyable weekend all in all. Neil told us we will have to come back again as we did not see the wild dogs, leopards or hippos.
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