South Africa (4) - 3 Day Safari in Timbavati Private Game Reserve

We moved up north to the Kambaku lodge in the Timbavati Game Reserve after our fantastic safari in Kruger National Park. This was a more luxurious accommodation with safari off road rides allowing to get very close to the animals. Altogether, we expected a different experience and it was. Surprisingly to us, we actually saw fewer animals in the private reserve than in Kruger National Park. There were also very few jeeps and we had the entire reserve for ourselves. The animals were overall more shy, less used to see cars, sometimes escaping quickly (impalas particularly) as they saw our vehicle. The opportunity to get close to the animals was quite special, particularly to view elephant, hyena and giraffe families up close.
Here are some pictures selected to avoid too much redundancy with the previous two posts.

Marabou stork

 Our driver Pallance

 Our tracker who sat on a front seat on the left end side of the jeep

There were four other people (two couples) with us in the vehicle 

The two sisters

Cute little elephant about 3 week old - He loves to play with his sibling

Tawny eagle

Marsh owl

Big yawn!

Brown snake eagle

Leopard sleeping on a dirt mount

She wakes up

and goes into hidding

Then she moves again and we follow her - nice pic this time!

And she leaves

Spotted hyena with cubs

 Side striped jackal

Wildebeests

 Reedbuck

 Vultures

A herd of approximately 70-80 buffaloes

 An older female lion

We were lucky to see wild dogs again, this time seven of them

A snack outside the vehicle, hoping that we will not serve as snack to big animals!!

Ostrich

A giraffe family of four

One or two families of spotted hyenas with newly born cubs as well as 1 year old cubs

Is it really going to rain?

Grey heron

African spoonbill

A seated giraffe - a rare sighting!

A giraffe awkwardly getting up 

Another snack :))

Dinner with all guests

"Let freedom reign. The sun never set on so glorious a human achievement"

Nelson Mandela