Today we'd planned to head out for the day, since mom had taken the day off work, and decided to make our way out northwest, first stopping in at Heia Safari Lodge which is nestled below the Swartkop Mountain Range next to the Cradle of Humankind and just over an hour's drive from Joburg. The lodge is situated on a game farm and has Giraffe, Zebra, Wildebeest, Blesbok, Impala and Springbok which freely roam the hotel grounds, amongst the thatched stone buildings and conference centres. We hadn't planned on spending too much time there, more just a walk around and to see their famous "Zonky" - a zebra donkey cross breed, but after arriving at Heia we found out that the "Zonky" is no longer with them - apparently he passed away last year from old age, so maybe it was better we didn't get to see him in that state. While we were there, we took a bit of a walk around the lodges and down to Lake Heritage, which is contained by one the largest hand built stone dams in South Africa. Later on, while sitting around the swimming pool having ourselves a colddrink, we were joined by the zebras who use the pool as their watering hole which was quite something to see. And they hardly seemed bothered by us standing nearby at all!

After Heia we made our way over towards the Lion and Rhino Park, about a half an hour's drive away. Unfortunately we were too late to get in, would've needed more time inside there so decided against going in - we didn't want to rush around or only half see the place. So instead we decided to pop into the Neck & Deck Cafe which was just outside the main entrance to the park and landed up feeding the three giraffes there - Sunny Boy, Rosie and Sunshine. Not often you get that up-close with a giraffe, well, other than last year at the Kruger when one used us as a barrier against a few lions, but that was slightly different :)

After we were done with the feeding we continued north towards Hartbeespoort Dam which was about 45 min away. There isn't really anywhere around the dam to park or even stop and actually enjoy the waters edge, so instead we decided to drive over the dam wall where we managed to pull over and stop and all hopped out the car for the view of the wall and the northern parts of the dam.

After a bit of time near the dam we thought we'd try again to find somewhere closer to the water and landed up going into The Caribbean Beach Club which is basically a golf resort and estate, and walked around there for a little while, down to the waters edge and then back in the car and back to Joburg.