If the Lion Don't Get You, the Snake Might.....

This past weekend, Melanie and I drove to Tsitsikamma National Park for a weekend away.  It's about 3  hours from Shamwari along the coast west of Port Elizabeth.  The weather turned out to be pretty wet,, but we made the most of it nonetheless.

On Saturday morning we went for a 3 hour hike along the shoreline.  Despite some torrential downpours and having to take shelter under some trees from thunder  and lightning, we enjoyed the scenery along the way

And were rewarded by a beautiful waterfall at the end

There was a brief respite from the rain on Sunday morning which allowed us to go zip lining about 30 meters up over the forest canopy in the park

Monday morning it was back to the grind here at Shamwari.  One of the challenges in running a game reserve is keeping the right balance of animals.  Here, the lions have been a little bit too successful, so they decided to move one of their young adult male lions to a neighboring reserve.  After we found him and the vet got him with the tranquilizer gun, we loaded him onto the back of a pickup truck

And posed for a couple of photos before he woke up

While we didn't enjoy the weekend rain, it provided lots of large puddles for the elephants to splash about in.  The young ones seem to enjoy splashing about in puddles as much as young humans do!

The most recent excitement we've had was today just before lunch when we found one of the deadliest snakes in South Africa in a tree that stands about 15 feet away from the entrance to the building we eat all of our meals in.  Apparently there is no anti-venom to treat this snake's bite.  Lets hope his stay is a short one!

 Hope all is well back in America!