We got a wake up call at 5am so we could be up early enough for our early morning game drive. We bundled up in as many layers as we could manage. We stopped downstairs for 'breakfast', which was just coffee and biscotti. We took our bus out to the game reserve were we transferred onto two open safari vehicles. When we got going it was still completely dark out and absolutely freezing. We had our hoods up and our hands covered. Just as the sun was starting to rise, we saw a giraffe! And right close to him, a rhino. Amazing that we saw both right away! I was just so excited we had seen a giraffe.
The park was stunning as the sun rose. It was almost like the beginning of the Lion King with a bright red sun rising as a half circle over the mountains. There were a couple hot air balloons beginning to take off in the valley as well. Further up the road we saw a pack of elephants high up on a hillside. I wish we had been able to get closer to them. Then, as we started getting more sun (and warmer) we started seeing more animals; mostly wildebeest, impalas, and springboks. We even got pretty close to a pack do wildebeest. We drove around looking for animals, but not seeing much except for some cute birds and some neat trees. Then we got a call on the radio saying a lion had been spotted. We raced over, and by raced, I mean super fast, taking corners far too quickly and bouncing around. We got there just in time to see a lion butt, but that was about it. We raced off to go wait on another road where we though the lion had headed, but no luck. However, we were lucky enough to see an elephant sort of close by.
As we headed to another road that we hoped we might intercept the lion on, we saw warthogs and a jacket. We didn't see any lions, so they took us to a restroom stop for a quick leg stretch. After that we started heading back to the gate. I saw a rhino and called it out. We were able to get pretty close to the rhino. But that was nothing compared to the next rhino we saw that walked right in front of the vehicle. As we were getting close to the end, I spotted another rhino - this time with a baby! Stopped to watch them for a while. At the lake near the gate, we saw some zebras on a hillside, as well as two hippos that looked like rocks. It was a pretty good end of the morning game drive. It was back to the hotel after that where we were given free time until lunch. After lunch we had a bit of a rehearsal. But it wasn't long before we were gathering our stuff for our evening game drive.
We were lucky right off the bat and saw a mother and baby rhino in a ditch close by the vehicle.