I took the day off work to take the boys and their friend Ewan to Pilanesberg National Park. It’s school holidays and we haven’t gone away and they needed a break from FIFA 😉
It was such an amazing day out with them. We got to the park at 9am and left at 4pm! A full day of animal spotting.
Pilanesberg is just over 2 hours from our house so it was completely doable in a day, although I was exhausted last night after all the driving.
And guess what? The entire day (apart from the petrol) cost less than a trip to the movies would have cost! The park entry fees are so reasonable.
My favourite sighting apart was the black backed jackal that was sunning himself in the road as we came around a corner. My photos through the window of him were not great though 🙁
Anyway, on to some photos because that’s why you’re really here…
This was as close as we got to hippos. This dam was awesome and had hippos, crocodile and Impala.
We stopped at the Pilanesberg centre for lunch and had fabulous food at the Zebra Crossing Restaurant. This was the view from the deck with blue wildebeest in the foreground.
This was the funniest, this bird was waiting for titbits from Bradley’s plate.
We didn’t see many giraffe, in fact we saw more elephants!
This is Mankwe dam. It was so very dry and the hide was very far from the water. 
The views were just amazing!
We were so really lucky with our sightings of rhino.
And the Ellie’s! Oh how I love and respect them. We made sure we were really quiet close to them
Loved this rhino crossing 😂 we saw many zebra crossings too though. I think this is possibly my favorite photo.
It’s such an awesome day out with kids.
They kept a list of everything we saw…Giraffe, Duiker, White rhino, Zebra, Hippo, Waterbuck , Wildebeest , Banded mongoose , Grey mongoose , Mountain reedbuck , Tsessebe , Warthog , Elephant, Impala, Eland, Black backed jackal, Chacma baboon , Vervet monkey, Secretary bird, Heron, Egret , Great egret, Francolin, Crocodile , Turtle, Sacred Ibis, Kudu, Springbok, Red hartebeest, Tree squirrel , Jameson’s red rock rabbit, Steenbok , Gemsbok, giraffe
You had some great sighting though! The Duiker, Reedbuck , Jackal and Rabbit are all rather rare sights. We love Pilansberg bit have not done it in one day in many many years. You always see Rhino and Ellies . Gosh and it is scary how low Mankwe dam is. With the drought you see the illusive Pberg buffaloes now and again.
EPIC photo journal you really have an eye and a great camera to back it up.
I would love to visit there,
I am looking forward to doing Pilanesburg National Park on the coming weekend and your most recent experience makes me all the more excited to do it.
Enjoy your trip!