Pinda Reserve – South Africa – April 2-4

Pinda Reserve – South Africa – April 2-4

Our room at Pinda Forest

This was our only overland adventure for this cruise and it took a big one off my bucket list! We left on Tuesday morning out of Matupo, Mozambique by plane to Durbin, South Africa. The flight was almost an hour late and then in Durbin, the bus was another hour late to start the drive back northward to the Pinda Forest Lodge – about a 3 hour drive. It was about 6:30 pm when we arrived so we were too late to start a game drive for that evening as planned – a bit disappointing, but we were all tired and it was nice to just settle in and have dinner. There were only 18 of us on the trip, including our ship escort, so it was a nice small group. 

The 'rooms' at Pinda Forest are scattered throughout the forest area surrounding the reception and dining areas and each room was nicely secluded. Gorgeous rooms – at home we'd call them cabins. They had glass walls with sliding doors all around so you had a great view – they did have heavy shades that could be pulled at night. There was also a large verandah with couches and a huge bathroom with a soaking tub and separate shower, double sinks, etc. OK... this place goes on my list of "must go back places".

After dinner we were escorted back to our room (you must have an escort after dark) and we spent a little time out on the verandah and then hit the bed – our wake up call would come early in the morning for our first game drive.

 

The phone rang at 5:00 and we hurriedly dressed and grabbed the camera bags just as security arrived to escort us to the restaurant – it was still dark. After a quick coffee and cookie, we headed off in our vehicles. Our driver/guide was Sam and I think we hit the jackpot with him, as we found almost all the animals and he had a great personality! The Range Rovers could hold 9 passengers in three seats but we only had 6 in each so it was very comfortable and everyone had a great view. The seats are slightly elevated from the front to the back so even in the back seat we had a great view and could shoot (cameras not guns) in all directions.

We were just a little way out when we saw our first group of impalas so we started getting very excited – almost too dark for pics, but we tried anyway. The sunrise was gorgeous and the morning stayed perfect for photography – slightly overcast so we didn't get the heavy shadows. The guides of the three vehicles stayed in radio contact so they could tell each other when and where they were finding the animals. We saw lots of impalas, a pride of lions, some rhinos, giraffes, wildebeest, cheetahs, elephant – more too, that I can't think of right now. We also saw a cape buffalo from the dining area at the lodge so we scored all of the Big Five. The elephant was a huge bull – he just stepped out of the bush right in front of the vehicle. We stopped and got some shots and then he continued across the path and went behind some bushes. Then he came out again and decided that he'd show who was boss and did a short charge at the back of the vehicle – great pics!! He snorted at us a couple times and then wandered off. My other favorite was the cheetahs – our second bunch of them included a mother and two babies. So beautiful and the babies were so cute.

After 3 hours we returned to the lodge for breakfast and lunch and some down time with a second drive scheduled for 3:30 in the afternoon. We took our camera bags back to the room and put the batteries on the charger and went back for breakfast. At our meeting on the ship before the trip, we had been told that the food would be buffet-style, but it turned out that we ordered from a short daily menu with just the right amount of choices to keep everyone happy and, of course, way too much food! The lodge had a wonderful infinity pool area that overlooked a game area but it was too cool to use it. Bummer, I had been looking forward to it.

After breakfast we headed back to the room hoping to see some of the monkeys that we had been told would be around the area. We sat our on the verandah for quite a while looking through the trees and saying "here monkey" - not one to be found after a while we went in – Jim to take a shower and I wanted to lie down on the bed and read a bit. We hadn't been inside 10 minutes when I looked up and there's a monkey looking back at me... he scampered up the tree and onto the roof. We kept watching and found a whole family of them. We tried going outside for better pics, but they would back up further away into the trees so we ended up shooting through the windows. We had great fun with them for a couple hours and then it was time to head back to the lodge for the afternoon drive.

By now it is very cloudy and starting to spit rain... we all loaded into the cars hoping for the best. The mission for the afternoon drive was to find the leopards. All three vehicles coordinated the search around the area where they frequented without much luck. We were slowed for a short while when we had a flat tire, but our guide and spotter changed it very quickly and we were off again. We did catch sight of one running off through the trees – I only saw his butt and tail (but I'm counting it!). By this time we were all wearing the canvas ponchos they provided but we were wet and cold and it was dark so we headed back to the lodge. We had a great dinner, passed on dessert and asked security to take us back to our room. Most people were staying at the lodge for some drinks, but we needed some time to kick-back. It was another early to bed night to be ready for the 5 am wake-up call hoping the rain would stop.

 

I woke up several times during the night and it was still raining... and it was raining when the phone rang in the morning. We got dressed, but I decided not to go another 3 hours in the cold rain in search of more cape buffalo didn't sound as good as just staying in the great room – Jim agreed so we both begged out. We walked over to the restaurant for coffee a little later and had coffee and a nice little plate of oatmeal/chocolate cookies. We were watching a monkey in a tree nearby through the opened doorway. I decided to move to a table outside outside so I could see him better... I tossed a bit of my cookie – he jumped down and grabbed it... and like a blazing streak ran through the room and grabbed the two cookies left on the plate and was out the door again before I even realized what he did. Jim spent the rest of the day laughing because the monkey was smarter than I was – he got my cookies! As it turned out the rain did stop, but our vehicle mates said we probably made the right decision as most of their drive was cold and wet – they did find more cape buffalo, but not nearly as many other animals as we saw on the morning drive the day before.

We packed up and after breakfast sadly boarded the bus for the trip back to Durbin and our return to the ship. Altogether it was a great trip – I can wish the weather would have been better, but we saw pretty much everything we wanted and you just can't control mother nature.