Travelogue: Panthera Africa

Saturday morning found us exploring a new area of Hermanus by going on a Park Run. You can't get to these paths at other times and as it's through Hermanus woods we decided to go so that we could have a look

There was about 300 participants more than we expected but as it's nearly always hot and sunny here it shouldn't have been

The car park was full and overflowing down the road

And here we have got back to the car to go whilst you can still see some folks on the route

Breakfast was at the Saturday market. We saw his guy- not the beady flamingo but the elephant behind. He is made out of the pods people use for their coffee machines. Here I know you take the pods back to the shop for recycling but I suspect landfill most of the time

We haven't been up here for a while so decided to see the view. It's nothing like as high as the mountains behind but you still get a nice view of surrounding Hermanus and onwards and all round Walker Bay

The path is upwards but easy underfoot

It was quite windy until we got to the top where it was really calm

This looks towards the golf course and Berg N See where Woodys parents live and then the Fernkloof nature reserve in the mountains

Evidence of past fires
And in the evening we went to Panthera Africa which is a sanctuary for big cats

This is a black leopard. I can't remember all the stories of these guys but in general there are reasons why they can't be put into the wild often because they were bred for shoots or for parks where they want animals of specific colour so there is lots of unhealthy inbreeding and no emphasis on them learning their natural skills

A caracal. These guys are distinctly unpopular as they take animals from farms to eat. However instead of shooting the local farmers now collect the lion poo from the sanctuary and spread it round their land. This means the caracals think a bigger car is there and steer clear.

One of these two and another lion were the reason for the start of the sanctuary. Two people worked with lions somewhere else where they were breeding them and they believed that they were to be released into the wild but they eventually found out that they were for people's collections or were for canned shoots. Both the panthera Africa owners had bonded with a lion and decided to make a safe place for them to live out the rest of their lives. It was a long journey and when they went back to find the lions they had been sent on to a place that kept lions til bought for shooting etc where the cages were small with no flora and no shade and only one piece of meat to be shared. There are pictures of it but they managed to find who they were looking for and brought them back to health

Another caracal. This one lives with another caracal which is really unusual as they are supposed to be solitary but these two love each other

This guy is the top lion. He lives on his own but they compete for being top lion by their roars which they were just beginning to do on our tour. Apparently it's not the main road that lets you know who's boss but the back roar which is more like a hunph noise and it's the lion that goes on the longest is the one in charge

He got the highest platform as he's the king

This is a mark of respect for one lion they did not manage to get to in time to rescue and each cross is for the 800 lions a year that are legally allowed to be shot in South Africa and then some for the illegal shootings- they are shot for their bones to be sold to china for their magic medicine but the numbers are checked by the bones rather than the bodies so who knows how many really get killed

The paths were decorated with these

Two sisters. These have lots of health problems including poor eyesight for which they have medication because of inbreeding to try and get white lions (rather than brown) which is a recessive gene. The one on the right does not like chicken which is the bulk of their food even if it's been on the same board or cut by the same knife she will rather starve than eat it so they get their food first. They also don't get it in their feeding area as the naughty one on the left spotted the medication powder in her food so would wash her meat in the water bowl before eating it so now they have it in their main enclosure. They have higher electric wires as they never got the hang of the fences due to their soft problems

This is a new rescue and he's being introduced to the pair next door to see if they can all live together. As a young male he's got aspirations to be the king

He likes this young lady who was rescued through the law as a family were keeping her as a pet in their library. They also have a tiger who couldn't be removed as they are not protected by the same law

A cheetah on the top of the mound. A lot of these are introduced to humans so that they can be petted at game reserves.

There were two tiggies. It was originally supposed to be another tiger but they found out he'd got shot so the big guy in the left came instead as he's been put in as a replacement by the farm who had them and thankfully they get along