🙂 Rustic Charm. Lions on a kill
🙁 Rain, Rain, Rain!
The Manyaleti Game Reserve is a quick 7Km drive from Orpen Gate. We were delighted to finally stay at Pungwe as Michel Gardin has been telling us for ages how special this camp is. A last minute cancellation had resulted in a very special rate which resulted in us cancelling our last two nights in Kruger in order to eagerly take advantage of this kind offer.
Our arrival was WET – VERY WET! Torrential! But we received a warm welcome and chatted while the rain did not subside … !
We sat down with Michel and a lovely family from Belgium – well sort of from Belgium… Alain and his daughter, Natalie lived in Cape Town but he was doing business on Pemba Island in Tanzania and also had interests in Madagascar. They were great company. Unfortunately the rain was relentless which meant that our afternoon drive was a No – Go. Our tents were spacious and comfortable.
Food was delicious – Carol is the 23 year old Chef who presented the courses every evening.
The next morning the rain had abated but came and went during the drive. Unsurprisingly sightings were sparse and we had our coffee stop at a lookout point under shelter.
When we got back we enjoyed brunch followed by a well earned nap. We then went to the main area and played Pigs with Alain and Natalie who really enjoyed the game, so we gave it to them to keep.
There are two rhino skulls bearing the evidence of poaching 🙁 Bullet holes in the first and the second shows where the horn was hacked off by a blade. 🙁
We spotted an interesting caterpillar with fans and hairs …we could not identify it until we got home and looked it up in my SA Insect book.
That afternoon a Dutch couple called Danny & Leonie arrived unexpectedly which put Camp in a bit of a tizz… we were very relaxed and they were a lovely couple. We set off on our afternoon game drive with low expectations as it was still very wet. Fortunately our luck turned an we found the Nazza Pride on a buffalo kill. Very smelly but a good sighting!
We enjoyed our sundowners before heading back for another good meal – we could hear a leopard sawing in the distance while we ate … we turned in for an early night.
The next morning we were up again at 05h30 – a hyena was prowling around camp…. Despite the rain on our game drive were treated with a lovely buffalo and rhino sighting to end our trip.
We enjoyed our coffee stop before heading back for our final brunch.
We had enjoyed a lovely stay despite the weather being dreadful! We will just need to come back and enjoy the camp in better weather! We will be back! 🙂
