OUR 2-WEEK ROAD TRIP AROUND SOUTH AFRICA

Leaving Madagascar, Valerie flew back home and I continued on to Cape Town to catch up with my dear friend Tracy. After a couple of days catching up on sleep and recovering from my amazing Madagascar experiences, Tracy and I hit the road for a "girls' road trip". We're spending about 2 weeks travelling on the circuit shown in the map above, heading for Witsand as our first overnight stop.

Witsand is located in the Western Cape of South Africa and is often referred to as the Whale Nursery. It  attracts a remarkable number of southern right whales between June and November  each year. 

Birds of Eden is a unique single-dome free-flight bird sanctuary (the World’s largest) that provides a home to over 3,500 birds from 220 species. The award-winning sanctuary is a haven for birds previously caged or kept as pets, allowing them to live freely in a vast, natural habitat.

Schotia Game Reserve is the oldest private game reserve in the Eastern Cape of  South Africa. It is owned, managed and run 'hands on' by the Bean family, who are now in their sixth generation and have owned the original farm, Orlando, since the early 1800's. I have been extremely lucky to have visited them several times over the past few years.

Schotia is home to a wide variety of free-roaming animals including rhino, buffalo, elephant, giraffe, hippo, crocodile and various other antelope and bird species. 

Schotia was also the first reserve in the Cape Province to have free roaming lions and in July 2023 they introduced a very special new male lion and 2 females to their reserve. This new lion shows almost identical features to the once roaming Cape Lion which was declared extinct in 1858. The Cape Lion was known for his magnificent mane stretching along his flanks all the way to his belly. With the introduction of this new lion to Schotia, they had the ultimate genetics to breed a lion that shows the best Cape Lion characteristics - and the exciting news is that the male cub born last year is definitely showing the Cape Lion characteristics already! 🧡🧡🧡

We were lucky to see all of the free-roaming animal species, including the magnificent lions, up VERY close. 

We hope you enjoy the photos. 😊