October 18, 2008 - Tala Game Park

My birthday was absolutely fabulous!!!
We went with our guide to Tala Game park. This park is about 45 minutes from downtown Durban so it was a day trip. It is not what is called a Big Five park because there are no big cats there. It is a private park that was established by a man who started a chicken business called Rainbow Chickens. It is now the largest supplier of chicken in the country. On the way to the park we passed the chicken farm and it is huge. We never saw the end of it. And of course where you have chickens, you have eggs. So there is a huge egg business as well.

Anyway, he established this private game park. It is 7,000 hectors of natural landscape. (A hector is about 2.2 acres I think) Because there are no natural predators, the animals in the park are plentiful and are not afraid of the cars that drive by because they have learned that they are not a threat. There are still some animals that do move away when the cars come by, but for the most part they are quite calm and just go about their business which is eating.....all the time! :)

The first animals we saw were ostrich. Right on the road. It was quite strange to see them just walking on the road until we got close enough to see that there were many babies and they stayed on the road because it was easier for them to negotiate the terrain. They were only about a week old and so the grasses stood taller than they were and they didn't have the long legs of the adults and kept looking for the path of least resistance. Male and female ostrich do not mate for life, but when there is a family they stay together until the babies can go out on their own.

Next we saw some beautiful little "blessed bok". I'm not sure if that is the true name, but it is what our guide called them. They are antelope type animals and they are very graceful and small. Along the way we saw wildebeast, impala, inyala (not sure of the spelling), one giraffe, rhino, warthog, many beautiful (and some very noisy) birds and plants. There was a pond where there were two hippos, but we didn't see them. They stay under water unless the sun comes out and then they like to sun themselves some, but we were there on an overcast day so they stayed in the comfort of the pool. They can stay underwater for about 15 minutes, but when they come up to breathe they just still their noses up and then go back down.

There was also a herd of about 15 giraffe, but we didn't get to see them. The one we saw was an old male. He was put out of the herd to die, apparently, but he stayed as close as they would let him and just followed them around. We didn't see the rest of the herd. They must have gone down into the brush in one of the many little valleys of the park where the roads do not go. We talked to a couple who had seen them the evening before but they had not found them today. Oh well, at least I got to see one in the wild. He was just eating away at the top of a thorn tree.
This tree has a natural protection against being eaten up entirely. When the tree feels that there are too many leaves gone, the tree will begin to produce a sap that is distastful to the giraffe and they will move on to another tree. This sap stays on the tree until it has suffiently replaced the leaves and then the giraffe will move back and begin eating again. Fascinating isn't it?

The rhino we saw were amazing. They are really big!!! We came over a hill and there they were just grazing with the wildebeast and the impala. Then, down the hill a little further I saw another rhino and a baby!!! Oh my goodness!! I was so excited. We drove down closer and I was able to get some great pictures and to just gaze on these amazing creatures. We were about 50 feet away from them!!! Our guide kept the car in gear and headed away from her because he said if the mom decides we are too close we need to be sure we are able to get away. The rhino horn coming through the side of the Mercedes would have been a very scary prospect!!! We would have been goners! She would have tossed that car around I think.

It was such a wonderful experience. I feel so blessed and so grateful.