Family Travel Times is usually written by us (Sarah, Jess and Robert), although my lovely niece Ella has made a couple of great contributions too (including this one on Whitstable). Now I'm really delighted to welcome you to another member of the family, my gorgeous young cousin Lila D, who is 8. She went on a magnificent extended holiday a while back and the memories have never faded! Here she tells us about the Start of a Trip of a Lifetime!
"Super South Africa!
Hi! I’m Lila D & I’m going to tell you about the time when I was six and my sister was four
& we went on a trip around the world…..
Imagine my surprise when I found out that we were going on a four month trip to South Africa, Australia, New Zealand, Fiji & America!!!
It was all fantastic, but I’m going to tell you about our first stop, Karoo in South Africa. It turned out to be sooo much more than I expected.
We started off watching The Lion King on our flight to South Africa, and ended up nearly driving over a real male lion’s tail in the actual country.
Going on safari for the first time in our lives was like having tea with the Queen a million times!
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An orange Throated Long-claw[/caption]
I’ve made a list of only ten of the many animals we saw:
Fork Tailed Drongo
Eland
Acacia Pied Barbet
Orange Throated Long-claw
Bat-Eared Fox
Vervet monkey
Blesbuck
Red Hartebeest
Impala
Wildebeest
We followed a daily routine and most of the time, we stuck to it. We were woken up early every morning by the sound of vicious howling, as a troop of baboons went by. Then our jeep driver would take us on a breath-taking adventure where we might meet up with a herd of elephants (did you know that they are great climbers?) or spot three white rhino hidden in the mist.
After lunch we would go back to the lodge and do some arts and crafts, where, for example, we would paint a leopard lying in the grass ready to pounce, while my Mum and Dad went on yet another game drive.
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Vervet monkeys tried to take Lila's food![/caption]
At dinner we chose our meal and while eating we watched the baby warthogs tugging eagerly at blades of grass, trying to get a taste of their sweetness. If we weren’t careful some of the Vervet monkeys would come and steal our food! Then, when dinner was finished, we would return to our cosy little hut where we would often find little treats lying on our pillow, and then have a satisfying, deep sleep. Well, normally…Once we woke up with a bat in our room, but that's another story... "
Read about our home safari - a visit to Woburn Safari Park!
We've teamed up with the fab #SundayTraveler this week, so please take a look at some of the other great posts on travels from around the world!
Labels: Blog, leopards, lion king, lions, safari, South africa, The rest of the world, vervet monkeys