"My Fantastic Holiday Experiences (I am sarcastic though)" Featuring new Author @thegoldencookie

Today I thought I’d write about one of South Africa’s fantastic but little known holiday destinations.

Pilanesberg is one of my family’s favorite holiday destinations. It is situated close to Sun City where the filming of the Adam Sandler movie Blended took place. Pilanesberg is a Game reserve surrounded by 4 or 5 Safari lodges with designated camping grounds for the brave of heart who do not fear dirt and the elements.

Though the above features are enough to have some people flock there already, there's more... What I find to be really interesting is that Pilanesberg is a volcano which has been inactive for many decades. Another really pleasant feature is the fact that you can arrive, unannounced and go for a drive in your own vehicle. There are high lookout points everywhere that you can drive to, get out of your car and scope for the animals you want to see up close and personal. I think perhaps stories of my experiences there will describe it better though.

So it’s the year 2005, man it's hot outside. I don’t mean just hot, I mean that you could probably cook an egg on your car and it's only 10am. Earlier on my dad had this great idea to go on a safari drive and have brunch at one of the lookout points. We got in his bakkie (South African term for truck) with a picnic basket in hand and drove into the game reserve. The first hour of driving around was nice but there was no action. We saw herds of Spring bucks and Zebras and Giraffes, then things got interesting…

There was a bunch of cars on the dirt road causing traffic. Wanting to see what was going on my dad drove through the bush to the front of the line… BIG mistake. An enormous bull elephant (named Amarula as I would later discover) with one tusk was getting ready to charge all of the cars, ours being first on his agenda. My dad put the gears in reverse and quickly backed up, into a ditch. I thought that we were going to die for sure. The elephant was getting closer and I thought we were stuck. To my surprise my father put the car in first and drove through the bush to get onto the previously unoccupied road. Unfortunately a herd of elephants had chosen this moment to cross said road and surrounded us however Amarula decided the other cars were more interesting. I think I must have stopped breathing while this was going on because I just remember the huge sigh I let out once they were gone.

Deciding that we had a long enough drive and and more than enough excitement for now we finally stopped at one of the water spots. We saw a Crocodile out in the sun and little baby turtles swimming to eat the crumbs we were dropping into the water. On our way back we were sitting on the car door with our upper bodies outside. We were driving slowly when my brother screamed for my dad to stop because he saw a cheetah in the long grass. In a bout of fearless stupidity we got out of the car to try and catch a glimpse of it but I had no luck. A passing game ranger came to us and scolded us for leaving our car, ordered us to get back in and kept his rifle trained on the big cat in the grass.

Skip to the year 2008. After a long year we decided to go to Pilanesburg again… Everything went wrong on our way there with the car (we lost a tire which damaged our trailer, car battery had a fault which resulted in it dying and then exploding etc etc). When we finally made it there despite our terrible vehicle my oldest sister decided that we needed to go for a late afternoon game drive. Half way into the reserve we were told to turn back as they were going to close the gates soon. As asked we turned back, but soon got stuck in the middle of a pride of lions crossing the road (again... now all we need is chickens).

Finally I got to see a lion and super excited I didn’t think to close the window before I took photos. Fortunately for me, they either weren't hungry or didn't want to bother with my minuscule hands. When we got to the gate it was locked and we were stuck inside the game reserve. My sister was pregnant and was extremely unhappy with the situation. After 3 hours of constant hooting and her screaming someone finally came to help us but also scolded us for not making it on time… Bad idea as my sister now furious gave him a piece of her mind in a tone of voice that makes me rethink why the lions never tried to eat me.

To people who are interested in nature and wild life I definitely recommend a trip to Pilanesberg. It is incredible to see wild animals in their natural habitats, just don't tempt them with any bigger hands. If you would like to take a look at their website you can find it here

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