WHAT WE DID ON CHRISTMAS DAY

I am going to post on something completely different today. I would love to share with you what my Christmas day looked like.

Off to church first thing in the morning, then off to an elephant park close to our city, called the Addo Elephant park.

I have taken some pics, and I am going to share some of them with you folks.
(please ignore the date on some of the pics, I keep on forgetting to set it, and every time when I remember, it is too late)

A few elephants, the first lot we found. When I took the pic, they were about 70 meters from us. I have to add, they are wild animals, and has to be treated that way, however, they are quite used to humans and vehicles.



This was another group, much closer this time, about 50 meters or maybe less. They are beautiful animals, and it hard to imagine shooting one of them just to get to the tusks. What a shame.



Some more elephants, also quite close. I must add, I do not know of one incident where an elephant has bothered anyone in this particular park. They are quite happy to let the motor vehicles drive right past them.



We had a good laugh about these two big tortoises having their fun right there next to the road. Now what you cannot see in the pics is that while the male was busy doing his thing, the female just kept on eating, as if nothing was happening, that while we were taking 'porn' pictures of a very unique nature.



We stopped here to "braai" some meat. The Americans know it as barbecue. Now I think you should know, the game park contains what we know as the Big 5. That means the elephant, buffalo, lion, leopard and rhino. All of which are perfectly ok to encounter anywhere, except for the leopard and lion. They do not scare easily and are meat eaters as you no doubt know. This park is big enough for them to run wild, and hunt their own food, so visitors are warned to not leave their vehicles.
This spot however is enclosed with an electric fence and a good gate, so everyone inside is safe.



A closer look at the camping site. My brother in law busy preparing the meat on the fire, while wife and sister are in the back ground.
Something else you have to be careful of here is snakes, fortunately we didn't see any.



A very proud animal, a kudu bull, about as big as a large cow, and very
dangerous when encountered on the road at night. They have a habit of jumping towards the lights of a vehicle, normally landing right on top of the car, often killing the occupants.



If you look carefully, you will see four kudu's in the background and our two hmmm busy tortoises in the front.



This was a very close shot of an elephant, (taken on another occasion) it was actually walking in the road, right next to my car and I took the pic from the window. Closest I have ever been to an elephant.



The only buffalo we saw was this one and he looked injured. He couldn't get up, and we were quite close to him. Also a very dangerous animal when wounded. He is known to kill his hunter if the hunter is too slow on the trigger.
He was at a watering hole and there was a whole bunch of elephants there, maybe he got to familiar with one of the elephants. There were quite a lot of elephant calves, so maybe a cow got rough with him.



My lovely wife, Yolande and our 3 year old boy, Jesse. He goes crazy when he saw the elephants, he loves animals.



And that's what my Christmas day looked like.
I have received a few more leg pics of readers, so if some of you girls are brave enough, you are welcome to send in some more of your pics.

Have a fabulous week.