Quad biking for big Game.
Today Started early – 7 am or 4am UK time, not that time matters anymore – a welcome luxury! Had breakfast with Ryan and Hen then Ryan and I headed off in his pick up truck (bucky) for bush river lodge. Another Lodge just up the road. This Lodge was huge – 5000 Hectares. We were to go Quad biking for 2 hours amongst the animals and seriously testing the off road capabilities of these Quads. Fucking Amazing fun, Up and down dry river beds massive gradients and in an out of Bushes and trees. Occasionally Johan (the owner of the Lodge and our guide, would stop, and motion towards some beastie lurking in the bushes. We saw Impala, waterbuck, Giraffe, Gnu’s (Wildebeest), and various other bucks too diverse to mention.
As I was bombing down this yellow dust track in Johans Wake with a deep blue African Sky above me and Lush green bush around me it hit me that I was truly in Africa. Wow, What a feeling of release and excitement.
After the tour I met a 3 month old orphaned Wildebeast called Wilhem.
In the evening I offered to take Hen and Ryan out for dinner so we went to this Bush bar literally in the middle of nowhere. It was a great place a far cry from Manchester!
Positioned in a raised plateau over looking the jungle this was an outside bar – monkeys and other wild animals surrounded the place. The bar had an international feel with Americans, South Africans, English and Irish people there. Hen Got wasted as she was not used to drinking, whilst I had a low key night perfectly content to soak up the atmosphere.
Sunday 4th February
South Africa Gap Year Research Trip
In the Jungle the Peaceful Jungle…Kruger National Park Safari
Today we all left to go on safari to the Kruger. All being a bit hung over we set off late. The day was ridiculously hot – even with the air-conditioning on In Hens battered VW which I was driving. A weird Hybrid between a MK2 front and MK1 rear. We got to Kruger and paid the entrance fee – 130 Rand (about £8) and we were off. The fist thing that hits you is the massive expanse of land in front of you. If you became stranded I have no doubt that you could be lost for months… If the Lions didn’t get you first. The park is the size of Wales. It is rammed with animals too. 10,000 Elephants, 3000 lions 125,000 Impala. Our first sighing was a huge old Bull Elephant. He passed us a few metres away, happily stuffing his mouth with leaves and grass.
We stopped off in a hide and saw more elephants, vultures. And more Buck.
Then we set off once more stopping off at a waterhole. We were confronted with a magnificent sight – 20 or so elephants bathing and playing in the water, we got so close that one of the mothers with a baby started getting jittery. At this point Hen could not get the car into gear as this Elephant was gearing up to charge. A hairy moment. But she managed in the nick of time and we managed to speed away.
The day progressed as we headed towards and encampment on the bank of the Oliphants River – this was called Letaba. Here we had a stroll around the Elephant Museum – Full of Tusked and from what I could tell loads of dead Elephants. Not Quite to my taste. Still the camp was quite a spot with a huge view of the river – mostly dry but still a hell of a sight.
On our way back out we saw more Elephant and Giraffe and impala.
Monday 5th February
South Africa Gap Year Research Trip
Decided against doing much today, so I offered to help out Hen and Ryan by cleaning the pool. Scrubbing green Algae off the bottom – hmm, Nice! Gave up after 2 hours it was a big pool. Today a German couple also flew into Hippo pools – literally – in a Cessna fucking cool. It has inspired me to learn to Fly – something that is fairly cheap to do out here.
Tuesday 6th February
South Africa Gap Year Research Trip
February 8th
South Africa Gap Year Research Trip
Micro lighting above the hippo pools and deciding to become a pilot and human sausages
I woke early as I had a plane to catch, I say plane but more of a kite with an engine. I was to go up and fly in a micro light. So I took off with Dionne the instructor and he immediately gave me the controls. The Fool.
Actually I was pretty confident. The View was undeniably impressive, Green lush bush for as far as the eye could see, brown and yellow tracks cutting through the jungle and the meandering Oliphants River bending away under us. The experience was so fun, I had to restrain myself from throwing it around but managed to control myself. We landed back at the hippos pools where Ryan was guiding us in on the radio.
After the lesion Ryan gave another flight school a ring, I am seriously considering flying lessons – 24000 rand – or £1783 for 40 hours of flight and instruction. In the uk it would be about £12000. We drove 80km to the airfield to meet the flight instructors and I have decided to go ahead and do it. This means delaying the travel plans for 3-4 weeks but fuck it, when I get to Australia I’ll be able to fly!
On the way back we stopped in a road side town, a backwater of a place, a few menacing looking Afrikaans staring at the new arrivals and a few local convenience stores. We were after some food to cook that evening – I had promises hen that I would pick her something up. We went into the “supermarket” they had nothing. As luck would have it I saw a sign up the street – “slag huis” under that it said “Butchery”. Slaghuis – interesting, I thought – this has to be worth investigation, so we entered. Sure enough it was a butcher, and we bought some steaks. The woman behind the counter was special. She looked, well, Dutch, crazy eyes like she had personally strangled her entire stock with her own bear hands. She was probably sizing me up as I paid for the Steaks. It was at this point that her husband – I guy in a kaki and bush hat stood up and started feeding Biltong into a circular saw. My Vision blurred into slow motion as I saw her son – probabably no more than about 5 years old reached up and try and copy his Dad by an pointed his fingers into the circular saw. At the last second his dad pulled his arm away from certain digit amputation. But that is how it is out here, I get the feeling if the UK health and safety man came here, he would end up in the meat grinder. No wonder the mince is so cheap eh? At this point I left and in my own conscience that kid still has all his fingers.
February 9th
South Africa Gap Year Research Trip
Poiky, batshit cleaning and Getting Wasted on Kane.
Today was devoted to drinking, Serious Drinking. The Fire water of choice was supplied by a mate of Ryans – James who was a bit of a nutter, typical lunatic bush man, ex military with a thick Afrikaans accent. This guy wouldn’t call a spade a spade. He would call it a bloody Kaffar then let out a laugh. A genuinely decent bloke, with a hot headed temper from years in the military seeing some pretty nasty sights I would imagine: fighting in Angola and being involved in shoot outs in town ships will do that to you I guess.
He and his wife – Ingrid, turned up at hippo pools at about 11 and produced a cool box full of kane which I kindly helped to demolish with them whilst Ryan and Hen pottered around running the resort.
I was still a little hung over from the night before – we had been to a deep sea fishing club run by Erich and Mags , an Afrikaans couple (Mags bore a striking resemblance to Hen, much to Hens annoyance!). Now my geography has never been the best, but I was pretty sure we were about 1000 miles from the sea, but then again distance does not seem to be much of an issue out here. Hoegspruit the nearest town is 50kms away.
The Afternoon was to be devoted to the great south African tradition of a Poiky. This basically a Stew cooked over an open fire for hours – literally Hours. Days even. It seemed to me that the Poinky is not an exact science – with absolutely anything going into it (Hen told me that some Africans have been known to put car batteries into the pot, this may be going a bit far I feel). Ours consisted of only slightly more rational ingredients, meat (beef I think) herbs spices – Tabasco – coke, wine literally anything we could find. The cooking and drinking lasted into the hours of darkness with a few visitors along the way in the form of a family of Hippos.
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