We approach the border at Pont Drift, South Africa.

We were met by rangers from Mashatu, who would drive us to the camp.

Transportation in this area is rugged.

We head down to the border, the Limpopo River. As you can see, there is no bridge.

Entering the river.

On the other side, we go through the Botswana customs area.

The monkeys we saw here were the only ones we saw on the trip, although they were reported to be around us almost everywhere.

Our first stop after leaving customs was a refreshment stop run by Mashatu.

This is Daniel, one of the rangers we saw while at Mashatu. He drove us in, but we had a different ranger assigned to us for our tours.

The first game animals we saw were these giraffes.

We mwke it to the Tent Camp.

Once again, we are met with refreshments.

This is the open-air office at the tent camp.

Our tents were scattered around the camp on trails through the brush.

We never had any opportunity to use the sitting area on the porch of the tent.

This is a comfortable tent, but we discovered that evening that there is no heat in the tent.

The bathroom facilities are readily available, but are open air just outside the tent.

In the "Terrace" near our tent, there is a bar!

... and a sitting area.

We meet our driver, Richard.

Note that Richard travels armed!

This is a female Kudu.

These termite mounds were all over the place. One this size takes about 8-10 years to develop.

This is the Mashatu tree, after which the game preserve is named. It is a striking tree, and is a favored nesting place for the baboon troops.

Baboons approach the tree.

As with all species, the young ones are always playful.

Even out in the bush, the tradition of the "Sundowner" is observed. You place your drink orders before leaving the camp.

The happy couple in the bush.

This is a large male leopard that we spotted at a water hole. It was too far away for my flash to have any effect. There were several spotlights on this animal, who paid no attention to them, or to us.

Dinner in the evening was around an open fire. Temperatures were probably in the 40's, very chilly for sitting around outside.

We ate in the Boma, an enclosed area overlooking a water hole, where we observed several hyenas while we ate.

Carol sat in the back of the vehicle with our spotter, Solly, who happened to be the nephew of our driver, Richard.

The most common animal we saw were the Impala. These are beautiful antelope, slightly smaller than the whitetail deer we see in the Texas Hill Country.

After a few drives, we began passing these animals by without stopping to view them. There were just to many of them!

Therse are Guinea fowl, but there is a small antelope in the center of the picture. I believe this is a Steenbok, but it could be a Duiker. Note how small they are.

There are two of these little antelopes in this photo.

We spent about ten minutes watching an Impala buck defend his female from three other interested bucks. The dust in this picture is what was kicked up as he chased one of them off. In the meantime, the other two circled around toward the female.

This is the female and a young Impala, apparently a young male.

Here is the defending buck with the female and the fawn.

The funny thing was that when the buck was chasing the three other bucks away, the fawn was attempting to mount the female(!) This buck really had his work cut out for him!!

This little antelope is, I believe, the Duiker.

There were some beautiful birds around, but getting decent shots of them was much harder. My zoom was really not sufficient to get a good shot, and their movement also worked against getting photos.

Finally, we located the Elephants!

This view seemed to me like a posed shot. It was really a beautiful and impressive scene to behold.

We run across another group of Eland.

We spent some time driving in the river beds while we were searching for the leopards. In the rainy season, this part of the country is totally impassable.

I was very impressed with these thorn bushes, which were all over the place.

These wicked looking thorns measure about 4-6 inches. they can really hurt you!

Seth Tolbert, on the left, was staying at Seringa when we arrived. He had gone there to work for the summer, but had injured his foot while in Rome, on the way, and was basically a visitor at the ranch.

The guides spent a lot of time examining the tracks to locate where the animals were for us to see. This looks like an Eland print.

This large flat print is the rear foot of an elephant, with a couple of antelope prints overlaying it.

We came across another herd of elephants that we got very close to.

This herd had at least three large males in it. This appears to be one of the younger ones.

This is the second large male that came right by us.

This one was the last, and appeared to be the largest, oldest, and probably Alpha male of the group.

This fellow got up very close to us and just stood and posed for us.

We think Seth was getting a llittle uncomfortable about how close this big male was to the jeep.

This is a better shot of that stork (heron?).

I did manage to get one shot with the wings spread.

Ostriches were pretty hard to get close to.

Closer to the river, we spotted this young leopard straight ahead in the brush.

None of the predators pay any attention to the jeeps and the traffic. The prey animals are much more attentive and wary.

We found a leopard kill, an Impala, hanging in the tree. They drag them up into the tree to protect the kill from other animals, probably the hyenas more than anything else.

Nice shot of an Impala posing for us.

Back for lunch on the terrace.

Meals were good, but pretty much "home cooking" style.

The setting for the meals was really nice.

The walkway out to the "hide", or blind, was protected so that you could get out safely,

This is the view from inside the "hide". The Boma was to the right about 50 yards across a small stream bed.

View from inside the hide.

This is a view of the Boma from the streambed as I crossed back to the tent camp.

The red handle is the insulation on the electric fence around the tent camp so that you can open the gate to go out to the hide. We were happy to have this electric barrier, because the hyenas were circling the camp all night. See the streambed and the protected wallkway just beyond.

We spotted another young Leopard in the brush near the river. The mother led them away along the river while we drove around in front of them to observe.

A four year old lioness that is said to be expecting.

There was another lioness in the vicinity, but with a year old cub. With a new male in the area, she had moved away to protect her offspring.

Males will kill the offspring of another male up to about two years.

Another one of the vehicles descends into the riverbed.

Two male ostriches.

A male and a female. Note the female is lighter, more grey and white.

We found the lioness again the next day, resting on the bank of the riverbed.

This is a truly impressive animal at this range. Her shoulder muscles give some sense of the power that she has.

Note how close the vehicle is behind her. We were about that distance on this side of her.

I believe this is a giraffe print.

The rear foot of a Baboon.

Front paw print of a Baboon. I was surprised to see that they walk with their hands open to the ground!

I believe this is a Hyena print, but I look for some confirmation on that.

On the way out of the camp, and far from the riverbed, we saw this Leopard. He is hunting, or would not be so far fromteh river.

We approach the main camp on the way out.

There was a group of Swedish women in the camp that wanted to shop as they left the preserve.

This is the bar in the main lodge, overlooking the water hole.

The dining room also overlooks the water hole.

The airport near the game preserve. The Swedish women had parked their vehicle here.

There was no one at the airport. The driver opened the gate to take them to their vehicle.

They had a several hour drive ahead of them to get back to the capitol of Botswana, where they were based.

Back to the border.

We had a larger vehicle leaving to accommodate a larger group.

Crossing the Limpopo.

We arrive back in South Africa.