After a cup of coffee in the restaurant, we departed for a full day drive in Welgevonden (at approx 6 am).

Today we are doing a six hour game drive and that’s why I decided to head north.

We drove down a very steep road named Jan stammetjie into the Sterkstroom valley. It was a cold morning and not much to see except a few waterbucks and kudu’s.

We drove up Eagle owl road followed by Tortoise road, both roads are known for sightings of elephant breeding herds. They often take this roads down to the Sterkstroom valley.

There were lots of tracks and signs of the elephants moving through this part of the reserve as well as fresh tracks and signs of a buffalo bull walking up this road not long before us..

As we arrived on the top of Tortoise road we encountered the western pride of lions. They were laying on a open patch of grass with the cubs playing, climbing on a tree stump and jumping on to one of the sub-adult males, BEAUTIFUL !

What a sighting, most of us were enjoying the sighting so much that we forgot to take pictures.
I wanted to stop at a dam called Rhino dam, but then we encountered a small breeding herd consisting of 9 elephants standing on the other side of the dam drinking water.

We enjoyed the sighting and drove down to the next dam named Leopard dam for a delicious breakfast.

After breakfast we drove back on the outback road on the southern side of the reserve overlooking the land that was integrated by Kololo, into Welgevonden recently.

When we arrived back in the South we encountered some white rhino resting under a tree in the shade, What a graet morning in the bush!