7/7/2013
Sunday
Today is the big day! Mixed emotions, excitement to live our dream and
apprehensiveness to leave dearly loved ones behind. What will the
future hold and how things will have changed when we return, who knows what the future holds. I just know I have never realised the impact of
the saying" if your dreams don't scare you they are not big enough" To be honest I am scared. On the lighter side, we found the wifi modem in the most
obvious place! The laptop bag, no wonder we said put it in here and it
will go with! So, after returning the new one purchased and happy to have the ebucks credited to our account we hit the road. It was almost radio silence as we both sat with our thoughts, but as we saw two wheels coming off a truck on the highway outside Bela Bela we started to loosen up and as we stopped for lunch at Zebetiela Ultra City we were ready for what the future may hold. We crossed the Capricorn and decided to push through to Tshipise.
Never been to such a big caravan park, its school holidays with a lot of kiddies around, but still the average age seems to be 70+, but we will be enjoying the warm water and fellow campers (a lot of springbok campers= campers will all the whistle and bells).
10/7/2013
After 2 relaxing days at Tshipise we move on to the Kruger today, here we plan to spend just short of a month and will be moving from north to south hoping for great sightings and awesome photos. We took a back road to a viewpoint of the sacred lake Fundudzi (http://www.mashovhela.com/south-africa-culture/lake-fundudzi.html ) and with ups and downs we reached almost 1400m above sea level in the Soutpansberg near the picturesque Entabeni. As we stopped for oranges alongside the road water was dripping from underneath the car. The new water tank! We drained all the water left from the tank and will have to make another plan, without the peace of mind of water we came down the
mountains with smoking brakes and locals waving and screaming we were dripping,
we just smiled, waved and said we know. This water problem is something we
will solve later, for now we just needed to drain it and get to the Park.
We entered at Punda Maria and set up camp amongst the monkeys, but they did not manage to steal anything from us, we are from Gauteng.
12/07/2013
Today we repacked the Cruiser things we will need closer and less used stuff deeper away, but we have to many blankets and will need to shed some, after re organizing everything we started to look for the little green wallet with the money and active card, and did we look for more than an hour and then found it in the most obvious place.
On the game drive we did not see much game, but we will still be on the look out for that special cat photo.
15/07/2013
We moved from Shingwedzi to Satara and were amazed at the biggest herd of water buffalo we have ever seen, probably around 400 just outside camp. On the way here we once again crossed the Tropic of the Capricorn and as we left the Boababs behind the vegetation changed and the herds of game became bigger with the increased amout of tourists as well. We went for a drink and managed to hijack the TV remote and enjoyed the Voetspore program , Rui is getting good at it, as we also watched the Tour de France stage at Punda Maria. But then again he is used to a remote in his hand. Still no cats.........
Although we have been enjoying the wildlife and nature at this camp we
really enjoyed the interaction with and people we met.We travelled sort of
in sync with a couple from Punda Maria but only got to really spend time with
them here. I once again realised life is about the choices you make and then how you face and cope with the circumstances. Most people have all and
more at home but prefer to live with only the most basics and enjoy life
that way. Some run their businesses from campsite to campsite and
another couple came up from the Cape to family wedding in Northwest 3 weeks ago, missed the wedding and Northwest and ended up in the Kruger, way off.
In the mean time they have sent their wedding clothes home with another newly met neighbour, bought a rooftop tent built a campsite with tie downs and bought a guitar(which they have since traded in on another, bigger guitar) and none of them has ever played guitar up till now, and has ever since been camping next to the fence at Letaba! And still no intensions of going home..... There surely are some great characters around and we so much enjoy spending time and getting to know some of them.
We also had some good news the past week, we will be meeting up with old time friends before leaving the park and then it didn't take much to reroute us to Sabie for the long weekend as we will be meeting up with friends there as well.
Really looking forward to this!
Our luck turned on cat spotting as we were at Skukuza. Our favourite road to Pretoriuskop never disappoints and here we saw leopard first time one early
morning. A bit further we had a *****star spotting and spent about 4 hours with 3 lion brothers, they must have just returned from a major party as they were parking off and snoring in the sun. We got some awesome photos and almost saw a little Jewboy being eaten by one of the brothers as he was
leaning/standing out of the cars window to get a nice shot. As he came back after driving off he was very pale and promised to never again hang out of the car in the park.
The campsite was filling up fast with takkie( running shoes) and shorts people and we later found out there was to be a marathon in Skukuza on Saturday.
We moved on to Lower Sabie with its magnificent riverfront view from the restaurant and parked off for another 2 days.
We had another sighting of a lion and 2 lioness which had just killed, but unfortunately no really good photo shots, suppose we got spoilt with the 3 brothers. The south is definitely dryer and the game more concentrated around
water .Rui made us the best roasted pork belly with veggies and couscous and I decided that I have to start a fb page with things that work: Foil!! Wonder how long will 70 meters will last.
We set off to Berg en Dal to meet up with long-time friends Lynton
and Marina Vermaak and got caught up in a traffic jam of note. A leopard
with its kill hanging from the tree, in situations like this it is the one with
most patience and time that gets the best spot and shot, and we have both.
Let's see what the day delivers.......
Just after 08h00 we clocked in at 4x4 Mega world in Nelspruit and
the job to replace the water tank commenced with Rui as supervisor. We unpacked and the dismantled and after running around for the correct fittings andrackets all was finished after lunchtime. Myself set off to visit an old family
friend and after a great dinner at the Spur we set out to a campsite just
outside town. Lakeview Campsite.
The next morning we set off to buy 2 Oztrail sleeping bags as we need to try and make morespace. We set off to spend the weekend with friends at Merry Pebbles in Sabie and after eating the famous Sabie pancakes we reserved 3 campsites for families Waller, dos Santos and Wilson in lovely sunshine on the riverbank.
This was the last of the sun for the weekend! Friday we took a drive to Pelgrimsrust only to return in the rain to aneven wetter and colder Sabie.
Fortunately wood is for free and soon we were all around a huge bonfire. We enjoyed the weekend with friends and all to soon they were packed up and returning on Sunday. We managed to send a lot of stuff home as we decided the space premium does not justify to keep them in the car.
Monday morning we set off to Nelspruit to sort out the last shopping, haircuts and insurance issues and we hit the town.
We did our shopping and realised the value of loyalty schemes as we used our points accumulated on the cards to almost sponsor all our shopping.
We will be spending the last night around here and head out to Maputo tomorrow morning.
FOR FOTOS OF SOUTH AFRICA:
CURRENT TRIP:
KRUGER PARK:
Sunday
Today is the big day! Mixed emotions, excitement to live our dream and
apprehensiveness to leave dearly loved ones behind. What will the
future hold and how things will have changed when we return, who knows what the future holds. I just know I have never realised the impact of
the saying" if your dreams don't scare you they are not big enough" To be honest I am scared. On the lighter side, we found the wifi modem in the most
obvious place! The laptop bag, no wonder we said put it in here and it
will go with! So, after returning the new one purchased and happy to have the ebucks credited to our account we hit the road. It was almost radio silence as we both sat with our thoughts, but as we saw two wheels coming off a truck on the highway outside Bela Bela we started to loosen up and as we stopped for lunch at Zebetiela Ultra City we were ready for what the future may hold. We crossed the Capricorn and decided to push through to Tshipise.
Never been to such a big caravan park, its school holidays with a lot of kiddies around, but still the average age seems to be 70+, but we will be enjoying the warm water and fellow campers (a lot of springbok campers= campers will all the whistle and bells).
10/7/2013
After 2 relaxing days at Tshipise we move on to the Kruger today, here we plan to spend just short of a month and will be moving from north to south hoping for great sightings and awesome photos. We took a back road to a viewpoint of the sacred lake Fundudzi (http://www.mashovhela.com/south-africa-culture/lake-fundudzi.html ) and with ups and downs we reached almost 1400m above sea level in the Soutpansberg near the picturesque Entabeni. As we stopped for oranges alongside the road water was dripping from underneath the car. The new water tank! We drained all the water left from the tank and will have to make another plan, without the peace of mind of water we came down the
mountains with smoking brakes and locals waving and screaming we were dripping,
we just smiled, waved and said we know. This water problem is something we
will solve later, for now we just needed to drain it and get to the Park.
We entered at Punda Maria and set up camp amongst the monkeys, but they did not manage to steal anything from us, we are from Gauteng.
12/07/2013
Today we repacked the Cruiser things we will need closer and less used stuff deeper away, but we have to many blankets and will need to shed some, after re organizing everything we started to look for the little green wallet with the money and active card, and did we look for more than an hour and then found it in the most obvious place.
On the game drive we did not see much game, but we will still be on the look out for that special cat photo.
15/07/2013
We moved from Shingwedzi to Satara and were amazed at the biggest herd of water buffalo we have ever seen, probably around 400 just outside camp. On the way here we once again crossed the Tropic of the Capricorn and as we left the Boababs behind the vegetation changed and the herds of game became bigger with the increased amout of tourists as well. We went for a drink and managed to hijack the TV remote and enjoyed the Voetspore program , Rui is getting good at it, as we also watched the Tour de France stage at Punda Maria. But then again he is used to a remote in his hand. Still no cats.........
Although we have been enjoying the wildlife and nature at this camp we
really enjoyed the interaction with and people we met.We travelled sort of
in sync with a couple from Punda Maria but only got to really spend time with
them here. I once again realised life is about the choices you make and then how you face and cope with the circumstances. Most people have all and
more at home but prefer to live with only the most basics and enjoy life
that way. Some run their businesses from campsite to campsite and
another couple came up from the Cape to family wedding in Northwest 3 weeks ago, missed the wedding and Northwest and ended up in the Kruger, way off.
In the mean time they have sent their wedding clothes home with another newly met neighbour, bought a rooftop tent built a campsite with tie downs and bought a guitar(which they have since traded in on another, bigger guitar) and none of them has ever played guitar up till now, and has ever since been camping next to the fence at Letaba! And still no intensions of going home..... There surely are some great characters around and we so much enjoy spending time and getting to know some of them.
We also had some good news the past week, we will be meeting up with old time friends before leaving the park and then it didn't take much to reroute us to Sabie for the long weekend as we will be meeting up with friends there as well.
Really looking forward to this!
Our luck turned on cat spotting as we were at Skukuza. Our favourite road to Pretoriuskop never disappoints and here we saw leopard first time one early
morning. A bit further we had a *****star spotting and spent about 4 hours with 3 lion brothers, they must have just returned from a major party as they were parking off and snoring in the sun. We got some awesome photos and almost saw a little Jewboy being eaten by one of the brothers as he was
leaning/standing out of the cars window to get a nice shot. As he came back after driving off he was very pale and promised to never again hang out of the car in the park.
The campsite was filling up fast with takkie( running shoes) and shorts people and we later found out there was to be a marathon in Skukuza on Saturday.
We moved on to Lower Sabie with its magnificent riverfront view from the restaurant and parked off for another 2 days.
We had another sighting of a lion and 2 lioness which had just killed, but unfortunately no really good photo shots, suppose we got spoilt with the 3 brothers. The south is definitely dryer and the game more concentrated around
water .Rui made us the best roasted pork belly with veggies and couscous and I decided that I have to start a fb page with things that work: Foil!! Wonder how long will 70 meters will last.
We set off to Berg en Dal to meet up with long-time friends Lynton
and Marina Vermaak and got caught up in a traffic jam of note. A leopard
with its kill hanging from the tree, in situations like this it is the one with
most patience and time that gets the best spot and shot, and we have both.
Let's see what the day delivers.......
Just after 08h00 we clocked in at 4x4 Mega world in Nelspruit and
the job to replace the water tank commenced with Rui as supervisor. We unpacked and the dismantled and after running around for the correct fittings andrackets all was finished after lunchtime. Myself set off to visit an old family
friend and after a great dinner at the Spur we set out to a campsite just
outside town. Lakeview Campsite.
The next morning we set off to buy 2 Oztrail sleeping bags as we need to try and make morespace. We set off to spend the weekend with friends at Merry Pebbles in Sabie and after eating the famous Sabie pancakes we reserved 3 campsites for families Waller, dos Santos and Wilson in lovely sunshine on the riverbank.
This was the last of the sun for the weekend! Friday we took a drive to Pelgrimsrust only to return in the rain to aneven wetter and colder Sabie.
Fortunately wood is for free and soon we were all around a huge bonfire. We enjoyed the weekend with friends and all to soon they were packed up and returning on Sunday. We managed to send a lot of stuff home as we decided the space premium does not justify to keep them in the car.
Monday morning we set off to Nelspruit to sort out the last shopping, haircuts and insurance issues and we hit the town.
We did our shopping and realised the value of loyalty schemes as we used our points accumulated on the cards to almost sponsor all our shopping.
We will be spending the last night around here and head out to Maputo tomorrow morning.
FOR FOTOS OF SOUTH AFRICA:
CURRENT TRIP:
KRUGER PARK:
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