A flying visit to Zebula

With a few more days left in Jo’burg before rejoining my truck family, Dad decided we could squeeze in one more flight – this time to Zebula Golf Estate & Spa, a five star holiday resort with a golf course, trout fishing, and game reserve. 

It was a beautiful day with clear skies so the flight was scenic, albeit a teensy bit turbulent.

Ian, another young pilot, came with us – and it was his first time to Zebula as well as mine.

As you’re effectively landing in a game reserve, you need to do a runway check for animals prior to landing. Luckily the runway was clear, save a few scattered droppings of antelope dung.

Zebula is not surprisingly named after the ‘Zebu’, which they say is a rare combination of zebra and buck that was discovered in the early 1900s – sightings are said to be rare and late at night after a full moon and after a ‘sufficient amount’ of alcohol has been consumed! They therefore encourage you to ‘Stick around and have a few more drinks and you might just experience this rare sighting on your own’.

Whilst you are unlikely to see a zebu here, you will see snakes, crocs and meerkats,

and have a choice of animal interactions. You could spend an hour with three adorable white lion cubs at 3pm,

an hour with two cheeky tiger cubs at 4pm (who said there weren’t any tigers in Africa?! ;) ),

or an untimed session with two cheetahs at any time of the day. We couldn’t stay late into the afternoon so after a tasty lunch by the golf course, we opted for the cheetah interaction – with Tarzan and Jane.

Jane was a little distracted by a nearby buck that had wandered onto the golf course and was munching away on some bright green grass, but Tarzan was much more interested by us and even started purring when we came over to pat him! He was evidently more at ease with me than I was with him – both of the cheetahs grew up in a house with a family (until they outgrew it) whereas my only pets were cats and a tortoise…

After Dad, Ian and I posed individually for pics, we got a shot together. Our guide told us to bunch up closer to Tarzan, which we did. Tarzan then took the opportunity to lick my Dad’s arm! He evidently took a liking to my Dad, though he had a quick lick of my arm too.

Reluctantly we had to leave (and without being able to sneak away with a tiger or lion cub in my bag!), so we were taken back to the airstrip in a game viewing vehicle. Dad and Ian did the pre-flight checks together and ensured there were no animals on the runway again before taking off.

Within seconds, however, I saw wildebeest, buck and giraffe nearby and cried out ‘giraffe’ in excitement (stupidly forgetting my Dad was more importantly focused on the take off…)