Once-in-a-lifetime wildlife and game reserve excursions
South Africa is a country that makes great wines, but it is also a country with an exceptional animal life and flora. Now you have the possibility to add four fantastic days of safari and unique wildlife experience to your wine tour.
This unique wildlife experience is offered as a safari add-on to our wine tour of South Africa. You can read about the South Africa Wine Tour here.
For this very special safari add-on tour we have put together four days filled with several different experiences to show you the incredible diversity of the African nature and wild-life. Instead of spending several days in the same game reserve we will take you to four (!) different wildlife reserves each showing you a different aspect of Africa.
In addition you will enjoy staying for part of the trip on the coast, literally on the water front. You will also have a city tour of Port Elizabeth in the Algoa Bay, a coastal region already visited by Vasco da Gama in 1497.
Here are some of the things you will experience.
Eye to eye with the leopard, copyright BKWine Photography
The Daniell Cheetah Project
The Daniell Cheetah Project was created as a way to help conservation of the cheetah (Acinonyx jubatus). It is sometimes spelled cheeta and is also called the hunting leopard or gepard. You will get very close to these beautiful animals and will even go for a walk with them in the bush. Here you can see some glimpses:
Read more on the Daniell Cheetah Project here.
A cheeta resting in the evening sun, copyright BKWine Photography
Addo Elephant Park
Not far from the cheetahs we have the Addo Elephant Park. This is the third largest national park in South Africa. It dates back to 1931 when only 11 elephants remained in the area. Today there are over 600 elephants and lion, buffalo, black rhino, spotted hyena, leopard, a variety of antelope and zebra species.
Here’s a video from the Addo Elephant Park with some of the animals:
Of course, when you go on a game drive in a national park you never know quite what animals you will see…!
Another very unique, but much smaller, animal that is important in the Addo Elephant Park is the wingless dung beetle. It is threatened with extinction and almost only exists here. Special care is taken to preserve them with “stop for the dung beetle” signs on the roads.
The Addo Elephant Reserve is also the world’s only national park to conserve the “Big 7” – the Big 5 as well as the southern right whale and the great white shark off the Algoa Bay coast that is the seashore limit of the park.
Read more on the Addo Elephant National Park here.
Elephant lunch time, copyright BKWine Photography
Amakhala Game Reserve
Your third wildlife experience will be at the Amakhala Game Reserve. Amakhala is a relatively recent creation. It started in 1999, created by the descendants to British settlers who arrived here in 1820 to farm sheep and cattle.
Today this game reserve aims to re-introduced the once abundant animals to the area where they roamed freely and so making a contribution to the conservation of our natural heritage. The challenge has been to re-establish the original flora and fauna species to the area and to return the land to nature.
Amakhala also boasts the Big 5 – the African lion, African elephant, Cape buffalo, African leopard, and rhinoceros – as well as an abundance of other animals. Our game drive will take you close to many of the most impressive species.
Read more on the Amakhala Game Reserve here.
A white rhino – rhinoceros, copyright BKWine Photography
The lion showing his teeth, copyright BKWine Photography
Sibuya Game Reserve
This will be yet one more very unique, and quite different, wildlife experience. The Sibuya Game Reserve is one of South Africa’s most unique safari destinations and considered one of the most beautiful private gamer reserves.
You can only reach the game reserve by boat so on arrival you will be taken upriver meandering on an extraordinary boat transfer up the Kariega estuary to the wilderness camp where the game drive will start. Our ranger will take you out in the wilderness in an open (!) 4×4 safari vehicle. It is truly breath-taking to come so close to these majestic animals with not so much as a car window between you and them.
Sibuya has more navigable river than any other game reserve in South Africa. So as a birding destination it is hard to beat. There are nearly 400 different species of birds.
This breathtakingly beautiful game reserve is also sanctuary to an abundance of diverse wildlife from elephants to otters, and almost everything in between, including the Big Five.
Read more on the Sibuya Game Reserve here.
Anyone feel like going out to pat the lion?, copyright BKWine Photography
Malaria free game reserves
The game reserves included in this tour are all malaria free, located on the south coast, little over an hour’s flight time from Cape Town in the region of Port Elizabeth.
A unique wine, food and wildlife experience in South Africa
This unique wildlife experience is offered as a safari add-on to our wine tour of South Africa. You can read about the South Africa Wine Tour here.
The road into the wilderness and a Blue Wildebeest, copyright BKWine Photography
The giraffes are head and shoulders above the trees, copyright BKWine Photography
A pumba, African wart hog, copyright BKWine Photography
One of the safari lodges by a lake at the foot of the hills, copyright BKWine Photography
Two antelopes, probably Red Lechwe antelope, copyright BKWine Photography
A Blue Wildebeest staring back, copyright BKWine Photography
The safari lodge has a majestic view over the landscape, copyright BKWine Photography
Continue reading: Add a fabulous safari experience to your wine tour to South Africa
The post Add a fabulous safari experience to your wine tour to South Africa was originally published on BKWine Tours and written by Per Karlsson. Copyright BKWine and BKWine Tours. If you see it published elsewhere in full it has been republished without our permission.
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