The Tree Lodge

The Tree Lodge is located within Ubizane Game Reserve. The room were individual cabins that were up on stilts. The idea is to allow the animals to walk under the units. It works! As I walked back to my room, I had to stop as two Impala’s crossed the walkway. Later, we could see two impala’s butting heads from the back porch.

The other neighbors included Monkeys. They were so funny. At dinner, I learned that while touring the place, Jim and Martha Pitts left their patio door open only to return to find a money on their bed. Our guide for the two day adventure told us that while on a cell phone, we wandered from his room, leaving the door open. When he returned, he found that his room had been ravaged by a group of monkeys. Everything was pulled out and dumped. He was so very thankful that he had not left his bag open!

When we returned from dinner, our room had been prepared, with the covers pulled back and the mosquito net let down. It was the kind of place that many of the twenty-something women talked about hoping for such a place to which to honeymoon! It was really cool.

Hluhluwe Game Reserve

On Sunday morning, we were to meat at 6:30 a.m. to head out on our 3+ hour drive to the Hluhluwe Game reserve. Leaving the hotel became quite the adventure with two girls oversleeping and then one of them got trapped in her room! Security had to come up and do “something” to get the door open. Once we got going, it was a wonderful day. Let me tell you about it! (That is why you are here, isn’t it?)

When we arrived at the Reserve, we split up and loaded into 3 4x4’s and then we headed out. Within minutes, we spotted Zebra’s (contrary to popular believe, Zebra rhymes with Debra!) followed immediately by Giraffes! It was spectacular, although I had to laugh; within minutes, we were saying, “Oh, it is just a giraffe!” Imagine that we got

As we moved on, we saw many hippopotamuses (just so you know, I was able to spell that without spell-check) and well as impala, something called Nyala (both male and female), vrener monkeys. Ours was the only group to not see an elephant. The other groups were boasted quite a bit, sharing videos with us that night.

I quickly found out what it the expression means when you say that someone can’t see the forest for the trees. As we were riding along, we were all so focused on trying to find animals that I almost failed to notice how stunningly beautiful the entire place was. It was huge. It reminded me of driving through Yellowstone with Christopher. The enormity of it all was just as impressive as the specifics. What an amazing opportunity!

Then, on to our “hotel” . . .