Day 12: From Shingwedze to Blyde River Canyon.

I woke up very early, somewhere around 6.30 and couldn’t sleep anymore, thus I went out of bed.  While I was enjoying my coffee at the porch I noticed the squirrels in the tree close to our cottage. They were very busy gathering food, it was fun watching them.

Just a little while later I saw a Woodpecker, but he was too far away, but still not too bad.

                               Bennet’s Woodpecker

 

Hans woke up an hour later and we left Shingwedze, heading for Blyde River Canyon.
Before we left the lodge Hans had to get some cash from the ATM machine, while I enjoyed watching the monkeys.

                   Playing Vervet Monkeys.

         

Green-backed Heron
(click on the photos to enlarge)

   

   

 

       

Not too long after we had left Shingwedze we noticed a tree full of Vultures. By now we knew it meant a dead animal somewhere close, the Vultures waiting for their meal.

And just 50 meters away was a dead Elephant lying very close to the road. At first I felt horrible, but I realised nothing has eternal life and other animals has to feed themselves too.

 

 

 

 

 

        Lappet-faced Vulture          &        White-backed vulture

         Vultures and a few Marabous on top of the carcass

As I said, I felt aweful about the Elephant, but at the same time it
was so… ehm ..nature.

So often I tried to get a closer pic of the Bushbuck and there he was…

         

                                       How romantic

          

                               Another Marabou Stork

         

We had expected to see a lot more Ostriches, but this was the 2nd
time only, and not even close by.

         

                         Kori Bustard, a very larg bird.

 

We had lunch at Letaba and moved on towards Blyde River Canyon.

And ehmm….. mission accomplished: We have seen the BIG 5!!!!

 

Outside the Kruger Park we saw one car driving strangly in the middle of the road, with one car behind it. As soon as we entered the driver of the car behind the first one waved at us and we stopped the car.
The lady driver told us they were already driving behind this car for a while and they didn’t dare to pass it, because they didn’t trust it, could be someone with bad intentions.
 
She asked us to drive together with her for a while untill it was sure it was safe.
But she was right, the driver of the car in front of was acting very weird, and because the people who asked us stay close to each other were locals, so they should recognise the danger.

Oh I almost forgot, now I start remembering everything again
A couple of days before we were driving on a dirt road and we saw a lady standing next to her car. We came closer and we saw a guy standing at the edge of a narrow river, in his swimwear…..???? At the other side of the dirtroad, at the other side of the river was another couple with their feet in the water.
And they were waving at us, while everyone knows it is strictly forbidden to get out of the car. And just as we passed the guy in his trunks I saw an Elephant just right behind him and he was still laughing and waving at us….. what is wrong with these people, they didn’t know we almost had experienced 2 Elephant attacks…. how stupid can you be. Hippos always close to water, deadly attacks no. 1 .
We just passed them and just gave them a look…

One day we were driving in the park and we saw a mini van standing on the side of the road, with a flat tyre. We stopped to see if they were doing allright, but well, South Africa can be unsafe, even in the Kruger Park. One man asked us for some tools to lift the car, but we were hesitating, what should we do. We were not alowed to step out of the car and we didn’t trust the guy enough to let him search our trunk.
So finally we had to leave thim, allthough we didn’t feel happy about leaving them.

 

Also one moment we were really in the middle of nowhere when a policecar waved us to stop. Hans and I looked at eachother wondering what we might have done wrong.
Hans opened his window and the police man asked us if we had seen a pickup truck passing. And yes we had passed the car he was driving with high speed and the truck full of stuff.
The police man told us they were hijackers, they had stolen that pickup truck and according to the police man dangerous too.
         

And then we almost reached Blyde River, we had booked ourselves a lodge at the Blyde River Canyon Lodge (how original). But we have never expected to be in the middle of the Canyon, really great!!

 

We checked in and immediately we felt very welcome, the hostess was very nice.
While she was making things ready for us we had a drink at the veranda of Blyde River Canyon Lodge. It had a wonderful, big garden and she told us we could expect to see Zebras, baboons, many bird species and Impalas in the garden.
She also told us about a tamed Impala male, years ago the previous owner of the lodge found him wandering without its mother and he took the young Impala home.

The hostess showed us our ‘bedroom’, which was a complete house, she confirmed it usually was meant for a whole family. This was wonderful and the bedroom, which was upstairs with a balcony, was so lovely.

We took our bags out of the car and went straight back to the veranda where we ordered our dinner and a cold glass of beer.
The food was terrific, not a quick meal, but really a fine cuisine!

 

Day 13: Blyde River Canyon.

 

Next morning we woke up and had breakfast at the restaurant of our lodge, again delicious!
That morning we had planned to take a boat trip on the Blyde river.

                                      Blyde River Canyon
            

                           
                                             Bushbuck

               
We had booked ourselves a tour of one hour, sailing the Blyde River and it was breathtaking, the temperature was good, but it was very cloudy. Not too great for photos.

                           

After our boat trip we walked the trail up to a waterfall in the canyon. During our safari in the Kruger Park we had bought some books describing the animals living in South Africa. I had read about the Black Mamba, still living outside the park. And they warned you all the time, to be careful for the Black Mamba. So you can imagine I did not feel very relaxed wandering through that jungle. But, I straightened my back, held my nose up (hm not quit hehe) and followed Hans into the jungle.
We did not see a Black Mamba, but we did see another snake though, I don’t know which one, I only know if they bite it hurts

       
A man told us about a Python, they don’t see them that often, but he told us his neighbour had a very young kitten. One day his neighbours were searching for their kitten, their garden was fenced sothat the cat couldn’t get out and nothing else could get in. But than someone saw the whole in fence with the Python stuck in that whole of the fence. Had quit some hard time getting through that whole as he just caught himself a meal, the kitten…..

      
 
We left the canyon, heading for the Moholoholo Rehabilitation Centre just outside the canyon, after a good lunch.

The Moholoholo Rehab. Centre is helping animals to survive, if possible bringing them back into the wild and trying to keep animals out of the hands of the poachers: Moholoholo Rehabilitation Centre 

   
                 Bateleur                                                Vulture

      
In the centre we got a tour and lots of information about the animals, but also what the centre does to help these animals.
We got to the cage with Vultures and of course I wanted to feed the Vultures, why not. So they gave you a glove to wear and meat in the glove to feed the Vulture. Well I don’t have to tell you how tough it was, for me, the picture speaks for itself?! Anyway, they are verrrry heavy and strong. But it was funny.

   
    

Hans’ turn. Hans was teasing the Vulture, he held the meat very tight, sothat the bird couldn’t get it out of the glove …. )
      
   

 

We got to the Cheetahs, the animal we had been looking for in the Kruger Park.

   
Here they showed us how a               They had a baby Rhino, it was so
Cheetah easily climbs, hanging         cute, he was constantly asking for
on his nails.                                          attention.

                     

                                  The baby Rhino

 

                

                      

The tour was very interesting. They told us that there was another Anthrax outbreak. In South Africa people hunt for Vultures, because of some part of its body what should be good for a human being. But they poison the Vultures with hundreds and they only need a couple of them. Vultures eat ‘sick’ meat and it doesn’t harm them, therefor the Vultures are so important, because it helps preventing outbreaks of very harmful diseases like Anthrax. As the number of Vultures are dropping Anthrax has more chance to develop and spread and become a real problem.

                                           Wild Dog

       

On our way back to our lodge we had some great sceneries.

 

Back at the lodge we had some unexpected guests…..
    

            

   
The ladies of the Lodge told us that the Zebras often watch themselves in the windows

We had a beer at the porch of the restaurant and had a wonderful dinner again.

 

Day 14: Blyde River Canyon.

 

We had breakfast at the Lodge and we were going to visit the 3 Roundavels that day.

 

   
The weather was again not too good….

                    Shops at the side of the roads

      
Before driving to the 3 Roundavels we first visited a Cave, the Echo Caves.
It was very beautiful, but also at some points very narrow.

      
Ooops a snake, but our guide told us not to worry, it wasn’t a dangerous snake.
            

As said before, at some points we had to crawl through narrow passages.
   
We came to a dead end and at that point our guide pointed to a very narrow passage and said we had to go through there, to get out of that cave. Hans started crawling into that whole, which was only big enough to crawl through. But noone would get me in there, I told the guide to bring me back to where we had entered the cave, no way I was going to crawl my way out of there….  )))

 

After our visit to the Caves we drove to the top of the mountains where we had an overview of the Three Roundavels. The weather was so terrible, the sky was completely black, I’m, sure the photos would have been a lot nicer with sunshine. But oke, we have seen the 3 roundavels

The vegetation up there was so different, here are some of the wild flowers.

 

Not too far from the Three Roundavels you could visit Bourke’s Luck Potholes, which was amazing.

                             The waterfall at the potholes.
          

   
        Hans on top the cliff      
         

                                           The potholes.

            
After we had been walking around at the Potholes we moved on to the Berlin Waterfall. But once we arrived it started to rain, so we didn’t feel like walking around too much. We only watched the fall and moved on.

                                      Berlin Waterfall

         

We’ve had a great day, but the bad weather and rain made it less interesting to step out of the car and walk around, unfortunately.

We returned to our Lodge in order to change clothes for dinner, we decided to have dinner somewhere else, the food at the Lodge’s restaurant was perfect, but we wanted to ‘go to town’ that night.

As we were ready to leave we saw the Impala in front of our cottage and he approached us immediately. He was very sweet, his name is Mala, trying to play with Hans, but his kind of game is quit rough and painful. Even though they have cut of his horns (not to hurt anybody) his head is still as hard as rock. So, playing with Mala wasn’t a very good idea.  )

We left our cottage trying to find some place to drink a beer and eat. We stopped at a local bar/restaurant called Loco Pub at Pilgrim’s Rest. Immediately everyone at the bar started making conversation with us, very hospitable and amusing.

We sat there for quit some hours before we decided to get back to our lodge, it was quit a distance from Pelgrim’s Rest back to Blyde Canyon. We knew the weather wasn’t too good, but in the bar they warned us for the heavy rain and fog, these mountain roads can be very dangerous and there are no street lights. But what to do, we had to go back…

For more than 1 hour we had to drive through the darkness, rain and heavy fog, they were absolutely not exaggerating about the danger. But we reached the lodge safe and sound.

 

    

Day 15: Blyde River Canyon.

 

Next morning we had breakfast at our lodge’s restaurant again. The weather was not very promissing, but we went out anyway.We headed for Pilgrim’s Rest via Graskop, but it was hard to join ourselves in the rain and the heavy clouds, we walked through Pilgrim’s Rest for a while and went further up to the top of the mountains.

       Buildings and the houses were build out of corrugated plates.
 

    
Next to this oldtimer they’d written on a sign:
‘Rust in piece A.Austin. Born: 1930′s. Died:1950′s …of metal cancer…’

         

Outside Pilgrim’s Rest we sat down at a restaurant for lunch, this was our view:
 

 

Although we had a nice time out on the mountains we decided to go back to our lodge, we couldn’t see anywthing and it kept on raining. Back at the lodge we drank a beer and decided to explore the lodge’s area. And we were not alone, Mala joined us during the walk through the woods )))

                     

           Mala joining us during our hiking trip in the woods.        
 

… and Mala followed us back to the lodge again after our walk. )
       

Back at our cottage Hans sat himself outside at our porch while I was playing with Mala. Ehm, Mala thought it was a great game…. I started running around with him, but as soon as I stopped running he came banging his head constantly against my knees, he thought that was  a nice game.
I liked it for just a very short while, because his head is as hard as a rock. But I had to laugh allthough it did hurt and therefor Mala thought I liked his game. At some point he didn’t want to stop no more and I called for help while I could not stop myself from laughing about Mala’s painful game. So finally one of the ladies of the lodge heard me calling and  came running outside and told Mala to stop. Mmm an hour later my legs were black ))
They had warned me for his games, but seemingly I had to feel it myself……             
         

Around 5 Hans and I went to a pub down the road, I forgot the name of that pub, but it was clear they loved Zebras
At first we didn’t like the pub that much, we decided to have one drink and move on, but after a little while people started talking to us and within no time everyone at the bar started to mingle.
We had dinner at the bar and staid there for a couple of hours, we had a great time at that bar.

When we reached our lodge we had visotors again of Zebras and Blue Wildebeest this time.

 

 
Day 16: Blyde River Canyon.

Next morning we woke up, I again woke up at 6.30 again, and Mala was there again, at the entrance of our cottage, playing with a cushion ))
In the back of the garden we could see the baboons climbing the trees. It was wonderful waking up with all these animals in your back yard.

Today was our last day in South Africa, we were flying back home next morning.

          

 

Our last day we had planned to go the Hoedspruit Cheetah Centre, while visiting the Kruger Park we hadn’t seen any, so we still wanted to see them. (we saw some pictures on the wall of our late Prince Bernhard from Holland visiting the centre).

Visit their website for more information: Hoedspruit Endangered Species Centre 

It was still early, we were lucky because they were just feeding the Vultures. The Vultures were coming from everywhere, amazing how they know to spot the food from so far.

 

            

                                    Cheetah

          

                                      Hooded Vulture

         

                                             Wild Dog

            

          

 

After a couple of hours we left the centre, searching for a nice place to go for a hike.

          

 

We drove all the way up to the top of the mountain, the view we had there was very special and we had never seen such vegetation.

 

We were high up and the clouds were very low, at some point we couldn’t almost see each other, it was very special.

At the end of our beautiful journey through these mountains we went to the Wildebeest rest & pub for a drink. It was very quiet, but the very friendly lady came to sit with us for a while to have a chat.

That night we had dinner again at our own Lodge’s restaurant. But as soon as we wanted to pick a table a Dutch couple started to talk to us. We had dinner together and spent the rest of the evening chatting with them.

The night ended not too good. Hans and I went to bed after taking a shower and suddenly I got terribly sick. I will spare you the details, but it was very painful too.
And then when I wanted to step into bed I saw ants crawling over my pillow….. aghhhrrr. Hans told me to go to sleep, but how could I sleep with the ants crawling through the bed…. Fortunately I was still sick enough to get over it and fell asleep.

Next morning, our last morning the Lodge had given us a package with drinks and food, it was so very kind of them. But I still felt sick and couldn’t think of eating.

We packed our suitcases and left, up to Johannesburg airport, flying back to Dubai.
I hoped that I would have some opportunity to see something of the sceneries on our way to Johannesburg, but I was so sick I could only sleep. Poor Hans, it was a long drive and I was only sleeping, everytime I opened my eyes they immediately closed again.

I don’t know where this came from, maybe something I ate earlier that day??

          Our last picture of Blyde River Canyon Lodge’s view.

      
As soon as we boarded the plane I fell back asleep again, I almost slept the entire flight. Even when we got home I still didn’t feel too good.
Remarkable is, even when I am very sick I always need my sigarette, doens’t matter how sick I am. But this time I had the chance to have a last sigarette at the airport and I just couldn’t smoke any…. ))

Tommy and Chantal had been taking care of the cats and the house again, thanks to them we could leave home for a well earned vacation.

And this is the end of our journey!!  (Finally after all these months )