22nd June  Ant's Hill

The Ant’s collection has two properties - Ant’s Hill and Ant’s Nest. They form a ‘U’ shape around a small privately owned parcel of land called Ant’s Den. Ant’s Den is owned by a lovely English couple with a few kids, who are filthy rich and own a private Game reserve.  They come here many times a year. It is their ‘coast house’.  The Ant’s Collection has a very good relationship with them and they often share resources as well as a name (Ant is the name of the owner of the Nest and Hill so they adopted the theme of Ant’s…).
They also needed to complete a censes of their game stock, so 20 of our riders, 5 of theirs and three vehicles headed off in the morning to count. We decided to go out in one of the vehicles to cover more ground quickly and move about. The sun was in hiding and the winds had picked up and it was absolutely freezing – well not freezing but only a few degrees above it.

On the way out to the place that the count would begin for the day, we stumbled upon one of the Buffalo herds, a favorite of Les’s (our guide for the day). Tick for our first sighting of one of the big five. The Buffalo are remarkable, they rather look like domestic cattle, they moo the same and have that dopey eyed and slightly vacant look about them. And yet many a tour guide will tell you that this is one of the more dangerous animal in Africa. It is also the animal that the Masia are most afraid of, and hunters likewise. They have a bit of a temper problem and can really do some serious damage. Their horns are incredible, thick twisted horns that meet atop the head in a thick and hard crown. The big bull in particular, had monster horns and an impenetrable crown, no hunting gun would have the power to crack through it, maybe a military weapon, but not much else. Not to mention they are huge. 

As the mounted counters made their way through the bush that was “so thick a mongoose wouldn’t go in it”, we saw the animals that got flushed out onto the plain. We saw herds of Zebras running with herds of Wildebeest, Red Hartebeasts and Blesse Buck.

So awesome!

We saw, Buffalo, Zebra, Wildebeest, Red Heartebeast, Blesse Buck, Impala, Water Buck, Nyala (a type of antelope neither of us had ever heard of before), Oryx, Eland, Sable (another antelope), Warthogs, many birds, Jackal.

…but then the best of the day…we found the giraffes. 

They are magical and utterly magnificent, they move in slow motion – because they are so big – and are surreal. We sat for quite a while just looking and taking photos. There were a few males and a few females and even a few babies. Including one baby that was so little it still had its umbilical cord hanging from its belly, it was under a month old. And yet so coordinated and not at all a lanky baby.

So we headed off for our afternoon ride (after a three course lunch and Tea with cakes and biscuits) with a new English couple and another English lady named Wendy. They brought me a thoroughbred to ride this time (not happy) so we did a last minute three-way swap, which landed me on a gorgeous little Boarperd cobby thing with a great nature. Responsive and go-ey but not rude and totally willing, and pretty. Finally, yay. Sarah got to break away and go for a really long and fast gallop too. Woo!

We went for a lovely ride and found the Girafulously close on horseback, like seriously close. 

After the ride another new couple arrived they were South African and the husband was a doctor and the wife a Physiotherapist, she ran a marathon. We had another lovely dinner with Heno and Nick (two of the staff members), the three new poms and a new South African couple, the husband was a doctor and the wife a Physiotherapist, she ran a marathon (as they told us 8397958098597298570 times. There were some “interesting” perspectives offered by them, such as, “Australian’s ought to hunt sharks and Crocodiles and reduce their numbers so we can all be safe to swim in the ocean like it is safe in Indonesia, because that is what has been done there”. Raina made a great zinger comment about there being no fish or coral reefs in Indonesia either because they killed them too. Sarah just flat out said she thinks it wrong.

Sarah nearly cried when she vocalized her desired wakeup call time of 5:30am, as she was the only guest invited to set out with the guys for the great Sable search of 2012, Raina and the other guests were going for the rather more pleasant time of 7:30 to go out in the game vehicle (a Land Cruiser with the top cut off and the back converted into rows of seats). Why why why Sarah. :P More on this tomorrow.