What a sensational final week of 50 sports in Africa. After completing our work visiting schools, our hosts Kim and Peter Van Kets took us on a three day coastal trek up the rugged South African East Cape.
Next stop was Addo Elephant National park where were saw a variety of big game up close as many tourists do, but we were also treated to two incredible experiences rarely available to the public.
1. We went out at night with the Park’s head of security, Solomon in an open back truck and tracked down a pair of wild male lions. After an exciting 20 minute close encounter, all within metres of our vehicle, we gave them a deceased Wart Hog as a thank you which they made short work of.
2. Chief Ranger Michael then took us out to track down a rare and endangered Black Rhinoceros…on foot!
The Rhino had recently received medical treatment for a foot injury and our job was to find it and assess its health. It is wearing a transponder so finding its general location only took us a couple of hours, but it was aware of us and moving fast so getting a visual proved difficult. After some clever strategic tracking we finally got a good look at this amazing beast and were delighted to see it running through the very dense scrub unimpeded.
Now we say goodbye and thank you to Africa and make our way back to Australia to finish our 50 sports in 50 weeks mission with a bang and on a high!
