Not your usual Monday morning traffic!
Kariega Game Reserve, Eastern Cape (13 October 2025) – Bush mornings don’t quite follow city rules. Your coffee might come with Amarula, you’re probably dusty before breakfast, and sometimes the only thing standing between you and your destination is a giraffe, or ten.
The bush makes your schedule, and not the other way around.
Kariega Game Reserve, a short drive away from Kenton-on-Sea in the Eastern Cape, recently gave us a good example of what life in the wild is like.
On a morning game drive, which typically lasts around three hours, they ran into some serious traffic.
A journey of giraffes had taken right of way on the road!
There were over 10 of them. Of course, all guides are trained to allow animals the right of way, and so the group waited patiently for each giraffe to pass, one by one, politely, in single file. As graceful as you would imagine giraffes to be.
A Kariega Game Reserve Guide, Kathleen, caught it on video:
The team calls it a proper ‘giraffic’ jam!
“Some of the narrow roads require that you pull over as far as possible to allow animals to pass by. Fortunately most of the animals are well habituated to our vehicles and pass by without too much disruption,” the team shares.
Coincidentally, we recently shared some exciting news about giraffes. We used to think of them as just one species, but it turns out they’re actually four species tall!
The International Union for Conservation differentiates them as the Northern giraffe, Reticulated giraffe, Masai giraffe, and Southern giraffe, which we in South Africa are more familiar with.
This shift in understanding matters because conservation can now become sharper, smarter, and more effective! Over the last three decades, giraffe populations have declined by nearly 30%. Concentrated efforts to protect them is necessary, and this discovery makes it more possible.
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