April 23, 2025
On seeing our ride from Joburg to the reserve this morning, Lenny goes, “ooo a cyber truck, my favorite.” Maybe a year ago now, Lenny overheard me saying I hate them and he stored that nugget of information and trolls me whenever he gets a chance. There was no audio hookup in truck but we managed to sync 2 pair of AirPods to my phone so we could finish the first Harry Potter book and also start the second together.
It was a 3 hour drive to the Welgevonden Reserve. On the drive to the reserve, we saw ostrich, a giraffe, wildebeest, springbok in fields (or other reserves, we didn’t know) near the road. Len spotted the first animal of the day (a springbok) and didn’t let us forget that he was “the first to see an animal with his own eyes.” We first stopped at the welcome lodge for lunch and to stretch our legs. To our surprise, we would then have another hour long drive to the main lodge. This hour portion was through the reserve though so we had loads to look at on the way. We also transferred from the covered truck to the open air Land Cruiser driven by our guide Joe. Joe will be our main guide during our whole time on safari.
We saw a pack of warthogs immediately on entering the reserve which we felt was a good sign! Apparently they are also the most abundant animal at the reserve.
The remainder of the hour drive to the lodge was filled with animal sightings; a big male kudu, a few white rhino, a zebra in the middle of the road, and the smaller klipspringer antelope.
When we arrived at the lodge, we were greeted by the entire staff in a very White Lotus-esque way. Kyle and I were mortified and thinking about it now makes me cringe.
We dropped our stuff off and got right back in the truck to head out for evening safari. There were huge bugs at the lodge and have been warned that they’ve seen gorilla spiders (tarantula relatives) on the property before.
As we left the lodge, we saw a group (a dazzle!) of 30ish zebra nearly immediately. The boys were acting like seeing zebra was old hat at this point which we found ridiculous. On the drive, the question asking was in high gear from both boys. On seeing any type of dung near the road, “Wait! Joe, what kind is that?” He jumped out to pick it up and rub it to show the boys that it was likely rhino as it was all grass with no twigs or sticks. Apparently, elephant will eat other shrubbery beyond grass and that how you can tell. The boys loved this.
It had rained slightly the day before so there were areas where the road was impassable or large puddles formed. Each time we drove through a puddle, Lenny yelled “Boat mode!” and even asked if Joe could please drive the truck through a small lake that we passed. In the photo, I think Len is grumpy here because Joe swerved to avoid driving in a puddle. His mood rebounded quickly though.
We had snacks and sundowners in a field near a group (a crash!) of white rhinos. I watched as Joe helped cut a lime for our drinks with his dung rubbing hands and knew it’d be prissy to let it get to me. We had thought we were way too close to the rhinos but Joe didn’t seem worried. They grazed grass the entire time and hardly noticed us save for a staring contest Kyle claims he had with one of them. The black rhino are smaller and much more aggressive and Joe said we could never stay so close to them. They’re also quite rare so we’ll be on the lookout in the coming days. Joe also shared a story of a spitting cobra that spit in his eye and listening to this story was the quietest the kids were all day.
We learned that the reserve we are on is 38,000 acres while Kruger National is 2.5 million acres. Joe used to work at Kruger and noted how crowded it would be— often 10 or 20 trucks lined up to see a lion while its much calmer at Welgevonden.
The sun set by ~6:30pm and we drove home essentially in the full dark. Joe drove the standard car with one hand so he could use the other to point a crazy flashlight into the trees and fields as we drove by, looking for leopards, chameleons and owls. We didn’t see any of these tonight though.
We saw a pack of antelope at the watering hole in the field in front of the lodge and wanted to get a better look. There is a tunnel under the front field that leads to a viewing area that is eye level with the watering hole.
After we watched a pack of springbok (or impala we can’t tell the difference yet) we were about to turn to go to dinner when one of the staff members whispered “elephant!!” and pointed. We saw a huge elephant come up behind the springbok, huff loudly and their herd dispersed. The elephant then walked past and made his way to the swimming pool at the lodge. We hustled through the tunnel to get a view to watch the huge bull drink from the pool. Eventually two more elephant joined him. The pool was right by our dinner table so all through the meal the kids would run outside to catch another glance of the elephants.
The day’s critter count:
Elephant
Impala
Kudu
Warthog
White rhino
Klipspringer
Wildebeest
Zebra
Springbok, giraffe, ostrich from the drive to the reserve
