Today is the start of our third week at 13 River Lodge in Kudu Private Nature Reserve, and each day has been a revelation. Most of the days have been beautifully warm, but by 5pm each day it begins to get pretty cold ... but no matter, we make a plan to keep warm.
Each day too brings us new visitors in the form of a variety of wildlife, with the Nyala being the most frequent to date. We have a large Spotted Civit that has visited on two occasions and quite a few Warthog families that come trundling down at various times of the day. So far we have only spotted one Sable Antelope down here, but have seen large groups on the road down from the gate.
There are birds galore, and our neighbour, Mike, has spotted and identified a huge number of Raptors during his 5 year stay here - and after just two weeks my list is already close to 30 bird species without even trying.
There are three Zebra that regularly visit along with a big troop of Chachma Baboons and lots of Vervet monkeys. We did spot a herd of Wildebeest up near the Gate on Saturday when we returned from spending the day with Pat's sister and her friends at their timeshare in Hazyview, along with a few Kudu on the drive down to the cottage.
The 5km drive down from the gate offers a whole host of vistas and we estimate that we drop down approximately 500 metres in elevation between there and here, with the river and waterfall being another 60 or so metres below the viewpoint at the bottom of our "garden" where the swimming pool and Llapa are.
All in all a genuine little piece of Heaven - we simply couldn't be happier!
