First Trip to a Game Reserve

March 21st - today was a national holiday (Freedom Day) which meant that the Temple was closed.  When that is the case everybody tries to make the most of the opportunity to see South Africa.

Today two vans full of Temple Missionaries headed out at 5:30 AM for the Pilanesberg Game Park. There are three major game parks in South Africa: Kruger, Manekwe and Pilanesberg.  Pilanesberg is the smallest of the three and is about 2 hours northeast of Johannesburg. It also charges the least admission (20 Rand) so this park is frequented more than the others, especially on day trips like this.

We had fun and saw a lot of wildlife, but hope to return since we did not see everything we wanted, which is usually the case in game parks. We are hoping to visit Manekwe before our children come out so we can decide which park to take them too.

             

We drove through about 1/2 of the park looking for animals of every kind.  As the pictures indicate, taken from the van by Gail from as close as 5 feet, we saw a number of the African animals but did not see any lions or elephants on this trip - maybe next time.

After sight-seeing we went to a nearby resort/restaurant named Bakubung's for lunch.  This was a very nice buffet (all you can eat) which cost us 100 rand - about $13 each and it was worth every penny. After lunch we headed home, arriving at about 5:00 PM.  A great day all in all - with good friends.

Sis. Ashcroft, Jenee, the Birds, Elder Roger Smith, sisters(literally) Gerhke & Warnick, the Browns.