African drama

Back blip.
This is a statue of the head of the formidable Water Buffalo, the most dangerous of the big five. They will apparently attack for no reason. This is at a service area with a difference that we stopped at for lunch. The difference is it has a viewing area over a small game park.

The animals are fed so it is nothing like the proper wildlife parks but you do get to see a good variety of animals.

In the background you can see them just arriving with the food and a couple of Water Buffalos arriving too. Lots more followed including young. Two White Rhinos, lots of Eland and Zebra and a selection of Ostrich and Emus!

You can also see the dark clouds. Shortly after taking this there was thunder and lightening. It didn't perturb the animals but made photography more difficult.

We travelled back up from the Low Veldt to the High Veldt across the Mpulamanga Province where most of the NP is though some of it is in the Limpopo province that we entered when visiting the highest peaks of the Drakensberg.

We were heading back to Johannesburg's O R Tambo airport.
Jo'berg and Pretoria are in the Gauteng province, and it rained all the way. How glad we had been in the Animal park the day before!

We also stopped at a citrus farm before the rain to do a bit of shopping and sample the wares. It seemed inconguous to see the workers wearing Santa hats, and even more disturbing seeing zebra skins for sale amongst the fruits and fruit products.

So looking dark and grey it seemed a good time to leave South Africa and re-engage with Christmas.
It's been a great experience, well worth visiting despite the long distances we have covered and the journey to get here and now back!