Rhino and Lion Park

Last Friday, I had the opportunity to go visit the Rhino and Lion Park (my first excursion outside of Jo'burg!). It is a wild game park that is outside of the city and houses many native animals in its boundaries. Although this game park is not completely natural, (they feed the lions and house them in separate areas of the park than the tasty zebras) it is nice to see the animals in a more natural setting than a zoo. We drove our car around dirt roads in search of all sorts of African animals.

We saw LOTS of ostrich. We also saw wildebeest, rhinos, hippos, crocodile, zebra, several different animals in the deer family, and a variety of birds. I’m sure there are others that I’m not remembering off the top of my head.

The zebra looked funny. It was dry and dusty and the zebra were coated with a thick layer of red dirt. So they didn’t look black and white, they looked more black and pink. The Rhino were eating when we first drove by in the morning and we got to see a baby nursing. It’s amazing to see a baby animal that probably outweighed our car. Later in the day, the Rhino were resting under a tree. Carol had her mega-zoom camera lens and wanted a photo of them...but they were all lying down. But the biggest Rhino chose that moment to get up and show off. It was like he was posing for the camera. First he was facing us, then he turned and we got a nice profile shot. He stood there for a long time as we snapped pictures. Then he lay down as if to say, "Show's over folks, thanks for coming."

My favorite part of the park was the animal crèche (nursery). There were several baby animals that were abandoned or injured that the park was taking care of. As we were looking, one of the staff put a leash on an older cheetah and took it for a walk! There were 6 month old brown lion cubs, 4 month old white lion cubs, and 7 week old tiger cubs (tigers aren’t native to Africa, they were imported). We didn’t get to just watch these cubs play; we got to PLAY WITH them!! You could pay about $3 and spend 5 minutes playing with these animals.

We opted NOT to play with the older brown lions. They were about as tall as me if they stood on their hind legs. We chose to play with the younger white lion cubs first. Although they were only about 4 months old, they were probably as big as a full grown lab. It was getting hot and they were pretty lazy, so we had to play with them to get them active. It was so funny to play with them like they were cats....just really big cats. They liked to bat at a coke bottle with rocks in it...their paws were as big as my hand! They loved to chase a rope around in circle. They also liked being lazy and just getting their bellies rubbed.

After the lions, we went to play with the 7 week old tiger cubs!! They were so little compared to the lions...about the size of a large grown house cat. They were a little friskier and wanted to play. They loved to grab your clothing and twist and chew as if trying to drag you around. They were fluffy and had the brightest blue eyes. I loved playing with them because you could actually pick them up and put them in your lap. And since we showed up when the animal nursery was relatively quiet, we got to play a little longer than our 5 minutes. ;-)

After playing with the babies, we rode around the park some more. To finish off the day, we went to the area of the park where animals are kept in smaller fenced areas for breeding purposes. We walk into a narrow aisle between to fences. On one side is a full grown brown lion and lioness. On the other side is a full grown white lion and lioness. The 2 males were pacing up and down the fence growling at each other. Standing between these 2 enormous, fierce animals while they were roaring at each other was a bit unnerving. Although there was an electric fence between them and me, I still felt the hairs on my arms stand up and my heart raced a bit faster. The growls, roars and rumbles were so low and deep you could feel it reverberating around you. The look in their eyes meant serious business. They desperately wanted to get to each other and show off their power. And I was close enough to them to realize how BIG and powerful they really were.

I was very impressed with the number of animals and the natural way the park was set up. I think this small park gave us a stronger desire to go see the enormous and very popular Krueger National Park!

PS...I’m having some trouble with this Blog, so I couldn’t add the pictures here. Check out my flikr site for a few pictures from the trip. http://www.flickr.com/photos/amberdawny