2015/2016 Three Continent Tour: March 7 Marc's Treehouse Kruger

Up 5:30 AM and had breakfast with the monkeys at 7. Then off with Mornay to the Wildlife Rehab Centre...Maholohololo. We were entertained by an African man who gave us a great overview of the aims of the centre. They look after lion, leopard, many vultures, birds of prey, honey badgers. Many of their animals are released, but it is a very tricky process. I felt it was a very worthwhile learning experience. An Afrikaans guy explained everything to us from poaching, snares, animal skulls, etc. Check out the pics. We came back to the treehouse camp for sandwiches for lunch and a swim to cool off. It is flaming hot here!!!!!!!!!

Honey Badger that was rescued. Each animal has a long story!! He got pieces of meat.

Hyena....had been a pet, and so will never be released into the wild.

Forgot the name of this red faced bird.

Many many birds of prey here....can't remember the name of this one above

Vulture city: we were allowed into the cage, and with leather arm mitt each bird got it's fair share of meat. I have great pics of them landing etc.

Above: bones of poached animals, have pics of snares used.

Vulture pics

Below...got the meat, and flew off from the mitt. Each bird landed on the mitt.

This young one below had been poisoned many times by poachers.

Leopard pics...he is not trying to escape, but trying to get extra meat. The guy threw meat up and the leopard dashed up a tree....have a pic with him up the tree.

BELOW: wild dogs, an endangered species.

Birds outside the centre....just hanging out

Pic of the Drakensberg mountains ....the backdrop to this part of Kruger. We went to town with the driver for a short while then onto a private game reserve called Tshukudu.( Rhino). It is a heat wave...we were 39 to 40 degrees C today. The swim at lunch was soon heated up by the driving. At the game park, Steve, the owner, drove us around. It was very hot, and we saw almost no game. All the animals were in the shade riding out the heat wave. Steven was very interesting, and we learned a lot about running a wild game reserve, poaching etc. He took us to see his rhino, which were eating bales of lucerne. The drought kills a lot of animals, and he needed to keep his rhino alive. They were very close, and great to see. We saw 3, and then later on another 2. Ar the end of the day we had a sundowner, which we had ordered and brought with us, and looked at the hippos. Amazing! About 7 hippos, one enormous male, plus females and two smaller ones. All eating lucerne. We moved the van to face them so we could take better pics, and one did a charge, then backed off. After that they didn't mind us at all. So, the trip this afternoon was actually exciting. There are many animals there but we didn't see them, including 8 lions.