Every now and then we are incredibly privileged to be given the opportunity to spend some time at one of our phenomenal locations. This year we managed to stay for five days at the gorgeous and relatively unknown Gondwana in Mossel Bay. Gondwana is a Big Five Game Reserve located within the Garden Route, set on 11,000 hectares it is the only Fynbos Nature Reserve with free roaming Big Five.
We set off on Monday morning, six womenfolk in one vehicle, for the four hour drive from Cape Town. We made the obligatory stop at Peregrine Farmstall in Elgin and got to the reserve in time for lunch which set the tone for the excellent food we would be eating for the duration of our stay. We also met Forget who would be our ranger for the week.
His knowledge of the reserve and its wildlife was incomparable and he was continuously testing us on collective nouns and our knowledge of the Big Five and the Little Five.
Early morning Game Drives were not warm, luckily we had blankets and ponchos which Forget bundled us up in. He also stopped in the open veld to make us hot tea and coffee and served us muffins and sugar biscuits.
Some of us enjoyed the game spotting
Some of us caught up on beauty sleep
One of us practiced taking artsy photos
We ate. Almost all the time.
And then on the last day we got caught in the middle of a buffalo relocation mission!
Once again the hugest thank you to all the staff at Gondwana, to Mark Rutherfoord for allowing us to witness Buffalo capture and especially to Forget for making our trip unforgettable and for teaching us the coolest assortment of collective nouns. Here are a few for you to add to your vocabulary:
a dazzle of zebra
a journey of giraffe
a memory of elephants
an unkindness of ravens
a pod of hippo
a crush of rhino
a flamboyance of flamingos
a parliament of owls
