Day 7 - Cheetah

We left Addo at 8:30 this morning for a 300k drive to Plettenberg bay via Tenikwa awareness centre www.tenikwa.com.

Road bridge across a ravine.

Don't look down!

 At Tenikwa,  we got to look around at the resident wildfowl, tortoises and meercats.

Marabou stork.

Ugly!

More tortoise action.

Very nervous, but inquisitive meerkats.

Now he's totally chilled!

Blue cranes. The national bird of South Africa.

 We also got to walk in the enclosures of 2 adult cheetahs, 5 servals, 2 adoloescant cheetahs and 2 African wildcats. This was with our guide Bryan of course!

2 sleepy adult cheetahs. Chaka is at the back, his sister Thandi is in front.

Yes we were this close.

Mid-day nap time.

One of 5 Servals whose enclosure we went into.

Two 18 month old cheetahs. Brothers named Zeus and Gabriel.

Zeus is the more dominant of the 2.

And Zeus is up.

 A Caracal.

We also went to see a Leopard. But this viewing as done from behind a fence as Leopards are not as friendly as the other cats apparently. All the animals were a little sleepy a it was 1pm and the sun was shining; which was good as it was drizzling rain when we left Addo this morning. 

ZweLakhe resting.

Annoyed Leopard because the guide called his name.

After Tenikwa, we headed for Plettenberg bay. We found a place outside of the main bay called  Abalone guest house www.abalonebeachhouse.iowners.net. We paid 450 rand for a lovely bright room with a view of the nearby hills on one side and a sea view on the other side. Unfortunately, the owner told us that this year had been a very bad year for whales and that we probably would not see any from the land, which was a real shame as normally this is meant to be a good area to see whales :-(

After unpacking, we drove into the main town but everything appeared to be closed; it was 5pm on a Sunday afternoon and all the shops had closed at 1pm. Instead we filled up on petrol and some food and then headed to a recommended restaurant near where we were staying called Enrichos. The restaurant was on the sea front, but we elected to sit indoors due to it being a little overcast and chilly at the time. I choose a freshly caught Kingklip (fish) cooked in white wine and olive oil, while Eri chose veal topped with a creamy bacon and mushroom sauce.

After our meal and wine, we had a short beach stroll to take some pictures before the sun went down and we then returned to our accomodation for the night. Tomorrow we have a 500 kilometre drive to reach Hermanus where we hope that the whales are still there and we get to see them.

View from outside Enricos restaurant.

Our Chevrolet Aveo hire car.