The Rhino & Lion Nature Reserve

*Playing with a little B&W photo processing today*

We’ve been to the Rhino and Lion Nature Reserve four times now and I’ve never written a real post about it.

To be honest, I really didn’t want to go for a fourth time. Some friends had invited us for a day out into the region and I hadn’t asked specifically where we were going to. When we turned into the Rhino and Lion Nature Reserve, my eyes rolled and I slid down the car seat and moaned.

Like I said in my post on The Pretoria Zoo – After having been to the bush, I no longer enjoy seeing animals being caged up.

But at the Rhino and Lion Nature Reserve, I have to admit that the animals are not exactly caged up. It’s a rather natural environment, although it has fenced areas to separate the animals. It’s still a place I would highly recommend to new visitors because you can play and cuddle with lion or cheetah cubs and see a few wild animals.

And stumbling into some white lions can be quite thrilling -

Except when one of them turned and stared at me straight in the eye. It made my blood curl.

Especially when it walked right up towards me. I pulled back my camera and wound up the window screen immediately. It stared right at me for a few seconds.

Further down the road, we bumped into the males. They must like our car very much, because this time, a male lion plopped himself right next to me. I lost my nerve to shoot completely. I only used my iPhone through a small gap in the window screen to capture this shot.

The lion decided to parade in front of us and walked across the road slowly. And then walked back again. It was brushing against our car the whole time. If we had accelerated then, we would have officially killed a lion in our time in South Africa.

We saw it move slightly away and stretched itself, ready to get some rest. I could breathe again..

And then I caught the old fart smiling to himself!! As if he was thinking, Bunch of stupid humans, so easy to scare them..

We should have just knocked him down and finished him off.
 

The Rhino and Lion Nature Reserve is approximately 45mins by car from Johannesburg and is located along the R540 highway. Entrance fees start from R100 for adults and R70 for kids, with special deals for pensioners, groups and schools.