Garden Route-Mossel Bay

     Ok, so I guess it's time to write about the Garden Route.  I don't want to do it all in one day because I don't want to, sorry Mom. =]  I will start with Mossel Bay.  We left early Friday morning for Mossel bay which is pretty good considering how much we have been sleeping in recently.  The drive was really nice.  It's absolutely beautiful!!  I originally thought that the Garden Route was going to be all around the coast, but it actually went through the mountains which was just fine with me.  These mountains are amazing.  

     The really cool thing about South Africa is that these mountains just appear seemingly out of nowhere and so do the beaches.  As we were winding down one of them mountains we saw Mossel Bsy and it was so pretty.  I don't have the best pictures of the view from the mountain, but I do have some pictures of the beach and such.

     Our hotel at Mossel Bay was actually a train that was redone to make rooms.  It's about as close to the beach as you could be without being on the beach.  The rooms were super small though!  The entire room is the bed and a side table.  It was about 6' by 6' meaning it wasn't quite big enough for Tyler, but as usual he didn't have any issues falling asleep.  We noticed railroad tracks about 5 feet away from the train hotel and we were told that they were still in use!  Luckily a train didn't come by that night.

     After we checked the beach out, we went to Jukani Predator Park.  This park was really nice because we got to watch the animals eat and stuff.  I will label each animal on the picture, but the female lions were on birth control so they are a little "cuddly".  We got to hear the lion roar and we sorta got to see the cheetah run, but not very fast.  

Honey Badger

Leopard

Black Leopard or Panther

Bengal Tiger

I forgot what this was called, but people in Namibia keep trying to keep them as house pets even though they are wild animals.  They were hissing at each other over food, so I would hate to see what they would do to a child when they won't give them the food they want.

Jackal

Lion-  We heard this guy roar.  It sounded like a motorcycle.

White lion-she is obviously on birth control

White Bengal Tigers

These birds are super mean and wouldn't stop making really annoying noises the whole time.

Cheetahs

Hyena

Hyena's are actually pretty large.  I thought they were going to be the size of a dog, but they are probably about the size of a small bear.

Female Siberian Tiger

Male Siberian Tiger-He was HUGE!

      We ate at this really awesome restaurant called Del Fino's.  The food was so good and it had an amazing view.  Unfortunately it was quite dark, so all the pictures I have don't really show anything except this one.

     Tyler's contribution: "The drive overall was about 5 hours but it did not seem like it took that long. We got to Jukani and it was cool seeing all of the big cats from so up close. We got to hear the lion roar but it wasn't as loud as I thought it was going to be. The animals were a lot bigger than I thought they would be."  I will post about Knysna tomorrow!  Hamba Kakuhle.