Sondela Nature Reserve

A couple weekends ago we went the Bensons and Weibles (Nikki's parents) to Sondela Nature Reserve about an hour north of Pretoria. It's an amazing place! We rented a beautiful house out in the bush and signed up for a number of activities at the Wildlife Center. At the center they rescue and rehabilitate sick, injured, and orphaned animals, as well as provide a home for animals that originally were living with humans (i.e. a baby tiger cub) but are no longer wanted or can be taken care of.

Our amazing four bedroom house

Having a snack on the patio

Nikki caught doing some birding / Piper and Kent showing Luke how to dance in the fire pit

Bedtime stories in the kids room

Feeding the goats at the farm

The first activity we signed up for was the baby giraffe experience. So much fun! We got to feed two baby giraffes for about an hour. Piper's take on the whole experience - "giraffes have long sticky tongues".

Of course Kent is trying to kiss the giraffe

Piper and her friend Tinkerbell

Elly the baby wildebeest followed us all around the center / a rescue owl

For the short drive back back to the house, on the dirt road, Piper got to sit in the front!

We also signed up for the full wildlife center feeding experience, where we got to watch and participate in the feeding of all the animals.

Bush babies

Feeding the baby Wildebeest a bottle of milk

Baby Kudu too

And back to the baby giraffes for their milk bottles!

That evening at our house we were visted by a few friendly Nyala's. The center provided appropriate food pellets to feed the animals that visited.

After running out of food pellets, Luke decided the Nyala needed some coconut water and to put together a puzzle. 

Kent being the Nyala whisperer

Double trouble

The Nyala's came back in the morning for more attention

The next morning we signed up for the bush baby experience, where we got to feed the bush babies yogurt from a bottle cap. It was ridiculously cute. Luke was super excited and eager to feed them, Piper preferred to watch from outside their cage.

But I managed to get her in for a little bit of face time with the bush babies!

Fantastic place to go with little ones! Or even bigger ones, they also have game drives, a tiger experience, bush walks, and more!