3:30am wake up call.  Ugh. Bags out at 4am, on the bus at 4:45.  And surprisingly everyone is up and on time – as a matter of fact, they are almost all downstairs with their breakfast bags when we arrive in the lobby.  Well, that’s a very unexpected surprise!  At the airport, we of course hop off first, grab our bags and hit the check in counter before anyone else arrives. We were a little concerned about our bag weight, simply because we are flying Lift, South Africa’s answer to Ryan Air.  But even though our big bag is a little bit overweight, our small bag makes up the difference and we don’t have to pay any extra. As opposed to half the Stevies who are toting along 3-4 bags each. Four?  Checked mind you – they also have carry-on.  For a 6-day trip?   What do we know…..

The flight leaves on schedule, arrives on schedule, and while we are in middle and window, we sit with Colleen, which makes it an enjoyable 2 hours in the air.  Collecting our bags, we follow Colleen out to the bus and begin an hour journey out to Dinokeng Game Reserve, where the Mongena Private Game Reserve is located.  Dinokeng, meaning land of rivers, is a huge reserve consisting of 18.000 hectares, or about 45,000 acres, of bushland and is the only Big 5 Game Park in Gauteng, South Africa. The reserve just celebrated its 10-year anniversary and is said to be a model of conservation. 

After checking us through the main gate of Dinokeng, we travel along to the Mongena Reserve, our home for the next 3 nights.  The reserve takes up 8,000 hectares, almost 20,000 acres, of Dinokeng, a lot of which we will be exploring over the next 2 days.  Lunch is being served for us in the Kingfisher restaurant, a lovely place with a large open air deck to allow for viewing of the lagoon and the totally cool bright yellow weaver birds that are making their nests in the trees right off the deck. I just love how they climb into the nest to add more branches, then come back out.   They fascinate me – I could watch them forever!

Lunch itself is a buffet of all sorts of local dishes.  We end up with far too much on our plates – asking for a “small” portion does not compute here apparently!  But the chicken curry is excellent, the meat dish – which we all decide is goat – very good, and the veggie casserole perfect for me as a whole meal.  Oh and then the dessert.  Yum. Lemon chiffon/meringue something pie.  Excellent.

We have a table of 7, sitting with most of the non-Stevies.  Jennifer (Canada) and David (Texas), Neil (Texas), Olga (Puerto Rico) and Colleen. We all chat amiably and get to know one another.  Also discovering from Colleen that once we are on a game vehicle, we stay with that vehicle and ranger for all 4 game drives. Ok. Strategic thinking is in order.  Each vehicle holds 10 passengers and Neil and Olga are way ahead of us.  They organize a group of 9 – all of us at the table, plus Michelle, another non-Stevie, and Jamie and David, a mother/son travel team who are actually Stevies – taking the trip through another woman that Jamie works with.  Ok, so we need one more whom we’ll find this afternoon when we go for our first drive.  We dub the group the team Nolga, in Survivor style, and prepare for our afternoon adventures.

After lunch we get our room assignments – oh my!  We have the best lodge chalet.  It is actually a 2-story chalet, with a large patio and zebra!  Zebra right outside the front door – so close you could probably go play with them. Of course, we won’t, but still. How cool is that?  And the chalet itself is awesome – a huge main floor bedroom with large sitting area, massive bathroom with deep tub, all done in rough slate stone, and a loft upstairs with 3 more beds.  Plus we are the most remote cabin, off at the end of the fenced property where we likely won’t be disturbed by anyone.  Sweet.

After settling in, and watching the zebras frolicking outside, along with nyala that appear out of nowhere, we decide to go explore the property a bit. The lodge compound isn’t all that big, so it isn’t a lot of exercise, but it is still nice to wander about and stretch our legs. We walk past the pool, which is jam packed with most of the Stevies and the kids (family of 4 from New Jersey), and head toward the lagoon with the weaver birds.  Circling back, we wander among the nyala and now springbok – watching them as they graze and then jump across a drainage ditch in the middle of the property.  The babies are adorable – and totally reticent to jump over that ditch until the moms show them how to do it, and they follow.  So cute.

We’ve still got plenty of time before our 4pm meet up for the drive vehicle (the drive time is 4:30, but team Nolga wants to make sure we get one vehicle together – thus the early meet time) so we hit the bar for a wine and beer, then take them to the chalet and sit outside watching the wildlife and enjoying the silence.

At the appointed hour, we say goodbye to our zebra and head to the lobby where we meet our team and load up in the first vehicle.  We are assigned Kieran, who is a new ranger, and so adorable.  He gets us all situated, gives us the overview of what we’ll be doing and we’re off through the gates of the lodge and out onto our first game drive.

And it is a great drive – we start off with wildebeest sightings, then of course more zebra, cape buffalo and the ubiquitous guinea fowl.  And an elephant off in the distance.  It is a beautiful afternoon, and the reserve is so scenic with a lovely lake and dam that we ride along, as well as long dirt tracks stretching through the bush.

After about an hour, we stop for a refreshment break.  Right on the lake, with Kieran pulling out snacks and beverages.  How fun!  Chips, boerewors, can wine and a gorgeous sunset.  The only thing better would be if we were alone and not with the other 2 vehicles who are making enough noise to scare every animal within the whole 45,000 acres of Dinokeng.  Seriously, they are hooting and hollering and yelling and quite frankly, they do scare away the hippo that was surfacing in the lake.  Sigh.  Thank heavens for Team Nolga and strategic thinking!

After watching a bit more of the sunset…

….we are off to our dinner in the bush.  Arriving at the Imvubu Boma, we are greeted by a roaring fire pit and seated at a big round table with the family; Mona and Gotham, mom and dad, Zara and Niam, 12 and 14 year old kids.  We have a fabulous evening of excellent food and conversation – Team family (as I’m calling them) have been everywhere, traveled all over the world, it is just wonderful to hear about their experiences and how much the kids appreciate them and want to see more.  The non-Stevies are turning out to be a great traveling group.  We’re so lucky to have our core “teams” as it were.

The evening ends with a ride back to the lodge, night time relaxing on the patio with some nyala then soon to bed – 5:30am game drives, 4:30 wake up calls.  You can sleep when you get home – as one of our favorite curmudgeon Cruise Directors once said!