Wednesday, March 28, 2007

Waza National Park

So the reward for our three day journey was to spend a day in a car - yippee. We organised for a 4X4 to collect us at 6am as it would take us a couple of hours to get to the park and give us a good chance of seeing the animals. We had hoped to stay nearer the park but just did not have the time to get there the night before. In the morning a mini bus appeared, the 4X4 was being serviced but we could still reach most places in the park in the mini bus so off we went.

Arrived in the park and collected our guide, some other random man also got aboard who turned out to be a good Giraffe spotter. His van had broken down and we were giving him a lift back. So soon after we entered we saw a few monkeys and loads of birds - could not tell you what sort in my opinion birds are boring, however I did not find the Vultures, Eagles and Ostriches boring, they were cool.

We also saw many Antelope and Gazelle type things. We would see the odd one by itself and large groups also. At time we had to keep tooting the horn to get them to move off the road as we passed. We did not see any Lions but were told they would be sleeping in the grasses near the Gazelles ready to pounce on them later. We did see some Lion foot prints but that is not quite a cool as seeing a Lion, if we had been able to stay the night and get to the park early we may have seen some but I do not mind not running the risk of being eaten.

We travelled through the park to the Elephants watering hole, although once we arrived the Elephants had gone. If we had the 4X4 we may have been able to follow their track and see them but the bus was unable to pass.

The star's of the day were the Giraffes. I love Giraffes I think they are such cool animals with there hugely long necks. First of all we spotted the odd one or two really tall Giraffes, there were hard to spot in amongst the trees, I know that is kind of the point but our guide and extra passenger had a good eye. A little later we saw a little family of Giraffes this was so cool, Mum, Dad and Junior (less than a year old according to the guide) shading themselves under a tree. They were pretty close to the road and we got out and took a few steps forward but were worried they would run. They were quite happy just standing there looking at us looking at them.

As we travelled out the park we also saw a big group of Giraffes who had been drinking at the watering hole, I think we counted seven in total. At this point we also saw a whole group of monkeys. So we had a great day an I think it was well worth the three days travel.

4 comments:

Unknown said...

great photos, look like it was worth the trip!

Anonymous said...

Did you see Gerry the giraffe by any chance?

Hev said...

Gerry must have been one of the really tall ones we saw hiding in the trees as he was toooooo talllll

Anonymous said...

Sounds like you had a good trip after all the fun and games to get there. The Giraffe family are very cute!