#Nature

This mantra drifted through my head (with a few letters added), over and over, during the two days I spent at Leobo Private Reserve.

The Pilanesberg Game Reserve is an unusual place. It borders Sun City – a glitzy, Vegas-like resort in South Africa’s Northwest Province. Pilanesberg is small by African game park standards, and Pilanesberg’s animals were originally introduced from other parts of Southern Africa when the reserve was created in 1977. (Read more about Pilanesberg’s interesting history on Wikipedia.)

South Africa is a geographically diverse country with eye-popping natural wonders everywhere you look. We all know the big ones: Kruger National Park, Table Mountain, the Karoo, the Drakensberg Mountains. But if you dig deeper into your travel book you’ll find dozens of lesser known places, offering their own unique versions of dramatic South African beauty. De Hoop Nature Reserve is one of those places.

I spent the weekend at the De Hoop Nature Reserve, a seaside wilderness in the Overberg region of the Western Cape. It will take me a day or two to get my photos together and write a full post, so here are a few Instagrams to whet your appetite.

On my recent visit to Etosha National Park, I learned that you can’t just rock up to a game park, drive around, and expect to take fabulous wildlife photos. Good wildlife photography is a lot of work and requires equipment that I don’t have, like binoculars and a telephoto lens. It’s also difficult to take good wildlife photos while simultaneously driving a car.