Up at 5am (see, this trip isn’t all beer and skittles you know…) to be out of the camp when the gates opened at 6.  Early morning and late afternoon are the best time to see the animals in Africa – they tend to be sleeping in the shade during the heat of the day (wouldn’t you if you had the choice?).

Great viewing again – plenty of elephant and antelope again, plus some new additions like mongoose, zebra, hippo, vulture and wildebeest.  Given the adventures we’d had with accommodation the night before, Flippie & Vic decided not to take the chance of not getting anything today and instead arranged a ’staff night’ at one of the lodges in the Ngala Reserve for the four of us.

Flippie works for Conservation Corporation Africa (CCA) – which owns and runs several private game reserves in Africa – as a guide at Pinda Game Reserve which we’ll be going to in a few days.  As a result, a certain number of nights are available for staff at any  CCA reserve at a highly reduced rate and Flippie very kindly used one of his nights for us.  Ngala is alongside the Kruger park but still required a fair amount of driving to get to it from where we were – fortunately we made it in time (just) for the afternoon game drive.

The lodge was, in a word, incredible.  These places really are absolute luxury in the middle of the bush, all due to the extremely hard work of the local staff who make it all possible, and to be able to stay here for around $25 a night (the usual rate is at least $700 per person) was just unbelievable.  We were both incredibly grateful to say the least!  The lodge even has its own airstrip – for the guys and girls back at CIAL, I have to say that the safety and security concerns may be a little different at Ngala – I don’t ever remember the morning flight from Singapore being disrupted due to buffalo on the runway!

Speaking of buffalo … the game drive that we went on (six of us plus ranger & tracker in a open Land Rover) was great – we got to spend quite a bit of time  with an enormous herd of buffalo (estimated at around 500 by people far more qualified to judge than me) from less than 100m away, not  to mention three lionesses and nine cubs as the light was starting to fade in the evening.  Back to the lodge for drinks (G & T’s for me – got to keep that malaria at bay!) and an exceptional dinner.  And then blessed sleep – another 5 o’clock start coming up!

Woke up to a great breakfast and wonderful coffee – I could really get used to this lifestyle.  Great for the state of mind, maybe not so great for the waistline but oh well.  Said goodbye to Flippie’s parents for a couple of days and headed into town to stock up on the essentials – which consisted largely of avocado, cheese, chocolate & coffee.  Seems about right really.  Into the Kruger via Crocodile Gate and the game spotting began.  I’ve been to Africa before but I’d forgotten just how alive the bush really is – animals and birds everywhere and of course just immeasurably better than being at any zoo, even really good ones like in Singapore.

I think this blog entry would be much better told in pictures (the vast majority of which are Bec’s due to her superior photographic skill and the limitations of a Canon Ixus!) rather than words, so suffice it to say that we spent the entire afternoon driving around a small part of the park (it’s huge – over 20,000 square km) and stayed the night in a permanent tent at Skukuza.  It looked for a while that we might not have accommodation but some swift talking from Flippie sorted that out – always great to have a local around who knows how things work!  Beer, braii and salad for dinner – who would have thought?  Right, time for some photos… which I’m sure don’t come close to conveying the experience, but it’s as good as it’s gonna get I’m afraid…

So we landed at a reasonably chilly Johannesburg airport (around nine degrees when we got there I think, though it was about 7.30 in the morning), navigated customs etc without incident, sorted out SIM cards etc for phones (well Bec did, my phone has packed a sad and isn’t working so we’ll see what happens in Europe – if it doesn’t work there it might be time for a new one) and then bought the worst airport coffee ever to while away the time until the shuttle bus arrived. Seriously, this coffee was BAD. Worse than the stuff at Chch airport by quite a margin. And that’s saying something.

Anyhoo … caught the shuttle bus and had a surprisingly pleasant four hours travelling to Neilsprut. The scenery looked surprisingly similar to what I’ve seen of rural Australia for the first hour or so, but changed significantly as we headed north – more lush and mountainous. Lots of people wandering up and down the side of the highways doing all sorts of things – I’d hate to think what the pedestrian v car accident rate is.

Arrived without incident where we met Vic (Bec’s sister), her boyfriend Flippie (Philip) & his parents Fanie and Louma. They’re all great people, very welcoming and fun to be around, so that was fantastic – especially given we’re going to be spending the next 10 days or so with Vic & Flippie! Got a lift out to the airport to pick up the hire car (the lesser known Toyota Avensis – which turned out to be really rather nice, leather interior and plenty of room. And surprisingly cheap, once we’d finished the obligatory minor dispute about pricing. Flippie drove us out to his parent’s place in Marloth Park – on the southern edge of the Kruger National Park – and life became a whole lot better with the addition of good braii (bbq), good beer and good company. I loved the feeling of being back in Africa as well – big skies, great people, and sounds, sights and smells of the wildlife. Nothing like kicking back with a cold one watching the warthogs foraging in the backyard. Helped us forget that we’d been up for 40 hours or so … for a while. Til we crashed out, anyway… even rutting impala and roaring lions couldn’t wake me up!

Today dawned cold and gloomy, with a hint of snow in the air and an arctic gale howling off the sea.  Yeah, really.  Or maybe it was blue sky, sunny and 34, with a humidity discomfort reading off the scale.  You choose.

Had a few fun filled chores to do (laundry, mostly) after checking out, so went to Washy Washy laundry (I kid you not) and left a load of stinky washing for the unfortunate lady to sort out.

We figured out what the story was with the bus to the Botanic  Gardens and jumped on that, then proceeded to do something a bit different and walk around in the hot sun for the afternoon.  Given that I’m not always the biggest fan of flowers and gardens, this was actually very impressive, especially the rain forest section.  Bec was in love with the orchid garden so I happily left her to potter round in there for a while, but other than that we managed the entire afternoon wandering round together in the baking sun without homicide being performed by either party – always a good thing, I believe.

Finished up there early evening, back to collect the washing, tried to catch a bus to one of the waterfront areas but ended up giving up on that so (just for a change) walked there instead for dinner.  This area is where the Singapore Flyer is – think London Eye but larger, and you’re pretty much there.  We toyed with the idea of going on it but decided to spend the cash on a decent meal at one of the seafood restaurants instead.  Comedy ensued with the dismembering of the crab (very tasty but my god what an effort – I reckon it’s like celery and actually takes more calories to consume than it provides) and consumption of the world’s stinkiest dessert (made from durian … y’know, the fruit you’re not allowed to have in hotel rooms or on the subway because it stinks so bad.)  As a side note, both of us are still burping the bloody thing up now, a few hours later.  Very attractive.  And stinky.

And now, we’re at Changi.  Great airport (if such things exist) and the staff are incredibly helpful and friendly (like just about everyone else in Singapore) – I’m writing this from a lounge I’m not supposed to be in, with a loaned ethernet cable connecting me to the free airport internet connection, thanks to the generosity of one of the staff members.  So all in all, Singapore was great, my feet are now stumps from walking so far every day, my camera has had a good workout and no major mishaps at all so far, touch wood.  Off to Jo’burg soon and then on to the Kruger – it’s gonna be a long day by the time we fly, take the shuttle bus for a few hours then pick up the rental car.  Almost certainly won’t have internet much if at all for the next week and a half, so no blog updates I suspect.

Take care out there…

So, if you’d sat me down a week ago and said Davey me old son, before you’re much older you’ll be spending thirteen and a half hours in a row in a zoo, well frankly I wouldn’t have believed you.  But waddya know, I did.  And on the whole it was fantastic.  Took heaps of photos of course but I’ll only put a few on here.

The day started early (7 am … on holiday!!) with a pickup from the hostel around 8 to take us out to the Singapore Zoo.  Normally I avoid organised tours like the plague, but this was more about the transportation than anything else (the Zoo is quite a way out of the city centre) and cost bugger all more than a ticket by itself.  First on the agenda was breakfast with the orangutans, which of course was a bit of a misnomer … should probably have been called ‘dodgy buffet near the orangutans’ but I guess that wouldn’t have sold so many tickets.  For all my cynicism though, it was pretty awesome to be a foot away from these awesome animals when it came time for photos.

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