But we wanted more! We decided to go for a "Half Day Safari" with Schotia who operate a private game reserve close to Addo Elephant National Park.

These trusted Landrovers should bring us to the Lions! Just looking at them makes one feel like John Wayne in Hatari. :-)

This is what it is like: once you enter the game reserve, you will be guided around (in the cars) looking for the animals. It may be a bit bumpy at times, but hey, you want to do the real thing, don't you?

And we saw plenty of animals, like this herd of Zebras in motion...

...and quitely standing a few seconds later. The pictures are not perfect, because dark clouds were covering the sky, and spray rain was setting in. You do not get very good shots with a 210 mm lense and just a 400 ASA film without a tripod - in a shaky car!

The Rhino was still sleepy. It did stand up later on, but I could not do a decent photo then, unfortunately.

An antelope at the Schotia Private Game Reserve.

And here you can see the real drama of our visit: The rain was getting stronger, preventing any good views on the animals. We drove back to the base camp to get a nice cup of tea, hoping that the rain would stop soon.

And guess what? The rain did stop, and when we set out for the second trip, we saw the Lions! It was a truly fantastic experience, completely different from a visit to your local zoo.

They were clearly the kings of the scene. They watched us, not really interested, but we immediately felt their presence. We knew that these animals are not pets. They were just a few meters from our car...

...and they were not too distracted when the lights were switched on. This female lion apparently is pregnant, which made the whole scene a bit more risky. Our guide told us that pregnant animals are unpredictable.

So, all-in-all, this was a fantastic safari, and it was good even with the rain. How much better would it be without rain? If you go to Addo, we definitely recommend to go for the Schotia safari as well. It's worth it!