Sanctuary

posing with kangaroos in Australia

I really love animal sanctuaries.

First of all they serve an important conservation purpose providing a safe refuge for orphaned and abandoned animals, a place to rehabilitate injured ones and hopefully return them to the wild, and a place to safely breed endangered species.

petting a wombat too

Secondly, you can pet and touch baby animals! Shut up!









Alex had seen all of the Big Five as well as many of the other African animals one secretly hopes to see while on safari. But we also took him to several sanctuaries throughout his visit in order to give him the opportunity to see some of the ones that had eluded us like the Nile crocodiles at Kwena Gardens, and to interact with others that we had seen.

For instance, even though we saw flocks of  penguins in their colonies near Cape Town, Alex was able to interact and help feed them at the penguin sanctuary at SANCCOB. 




We also took him back to one of our favorite sanctuaries, the Rhino & Lion Nature Reserve outside of Joburg to pet the white lions and cheetahs.






 

And even though we saw herds of elephants in the wild at Pilanesberg National Park, we visited the most southern dwelling elephants on the African continent, the Knysna Forest elephants in  Knysna Elephant Park.










There, we were able to feed, pet and ride on the backs of elephants, like I also did at Kwantu Elephant Sanctuary in the Eastern Cape, something that is most definitely discouraged in the wild!









 

Do not try this on safari!












We also visited Cango Wildlife Ranch in the Klein Karoo, an animal sanctuary ...

... where you can pet baby white tiger cubs!

Really way too cute!

So playful!

... and caracals ..













Incredible! You can also pet a serval and some other small African cats.

Cango is a world-renowned cheetah sanctuary so you can pet baby cheetahs  ...










and adult cheetahs too.  It is also a Madagascar Lemur Sanctuary so you can pet a Lemur if that's your thing. You can even feed some more ostrich and emu if you like. Me no like feeding ostriches and emus.

And if you didn't have enough thrills cage diving with sharks in the Indian Ocean, you can descend into the water at Cango in a cage and check out their Nile crocodiles up close and personal!

No thanks!