The Cat Park - by Nina

Today we went to the Cat Rehabilitation Centre at Emdoneni Lodge.  First we saw the African wildcats.  The African wildcat looks a lot like a normal house cat but it has a shorter tail and its front legs are longer.

the African wildcat looks a lot like a normal house cat

Then we saw the caracals.  Caracals are gold with muscley legs and long ears with tufts f fur on the end to increase hearing.  They are vicious.  My favourite caracal was called Peaches.

Peaches prowling

After that we saw the cheetahs.  We walked through a gate and across a huge enclosure.  Most of the enclosure is covered in long grass but at the back is a clump of canopy trees just like the plains of Africa.  In the canopy trees are two cheetahs just laying there in the shade cooling down.  They were beautiful.  Then the guide told us we could pat them.  He said to come up behind one and pat it.  I wasn’t really very afraid of them because they just looked like big pussy-cats and the guide assured us they were.

a cheetah laying in the shade

it was beautiful!

our guide said we could pat it

last we saw the servals.  When we went into the enclosure our guide pointed 15m up into the trees, and sure enough it was up there.  Then he led us to a cat on the ground.  To go there we had to go under a tree and we had to walk under a serval 10m above us.  The serval on the ground was laying down and it looked very calm.  Our guide said we could pat it.  It was so soft.  He said it was called Jane.

a serval 10m above us

patting Jane

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