An Trip of a Lifetime

We'll we're back from our vacation to Africa!!  It was a long haul..19 hours 15 in the air, but I think it was worth it.  We flew from Taiwan to Hong Kong, Johannesburg, and finally to Cape Town, where we had rented a beach house in the suburb of Kommetjie.    We lounged and explored the beach, went into Cape Town, and down the coast to the Cape of Good Hope.   The scenery was stunning and the temperatures cool.  It was spring after all in the Southern Hemisphere!!

After overcoming our jet lag we flew back to Johannesburg where we were met by our guide Alida de Villiers, who drove us 4 hours across the "veld" to Kruger National Park.    There for 5 days, we criss-crossed the landscape, soaking in the scenery and more importantly, the wildlife.  And oh the wildlife!!  During our say we saw 35 different types of animals..most up close and numerous times...and close to 50 kinds of birds.  Just amazing.  I think we'll never watch an animal documentary the same way.  Spending a half hour watching a herd of elephants play in the mud, a family of cheetah escaping the heat, a pride of lions well, lying down, a tree full of vultures, a hyena running down the road.  memories for a lifetime.

I've tried to put some of the gigabites of pictures we took into a slide show for you. 

Hope you enjoy it...it runs about 15 minutes.  I embedded a link to the file which is stored on Google Drive. It may or may not ask you to download the video (as with any video), but no password or program download is required.

The Towner's Africa Sojourn


The Towner's African Sojourn..alternative file type try for IPAD


 This slide show is just animals that we saw..a few more of each..  We took 98% of the photos herein...but  a couple, like the Genet, were taken at night and the internet photos were just better

The Animal's of Kruger National Park ..as we saw them in the wild


The Animal's of Kruger ...alternative link..works for IPAD3

Lastly we have the birds.  I wasn't much of a bird guy til we got to South Africa.  We really saw an amazing number of birds...big and small, colorful and camouflaged.  Pretty incredible.    We took all the photos in the slidshow but a couple are a little fuzzy because of cropping....Not every bird flies right up to you....though some did!

The Birds of Kruger and Cape Town (WMV file)

Birds of Kruger and Cape Town (Ipad)