From the sublime to the bloody stupid

So it's back to reality and I'm not sure I quite like it. I thought I'd share with you for this one and only time my diary entry for today, just so you can see how we have landed with a bump. It might make some of you feel better and think we have our just desserts after all our luck!

"The art of queuing

What a daft day! We were collected from the very pleasant and helpful hotel Faircity Quatermain at 6.30 and whisked to the airport in half the time it took the other day, arriving just before 7. We queued hardly at all it must be said to check in and went to get our VAT receipts validated so we could get a refund after boarder control. We queued there for several minutes and then decided we would get some Mauritius rupees so we queued at the ABSA bank to be told that they don't do foreign exchange. So we queued at one of the foreign exchange places to be told we had to get Rand in cash to exchange. That was logical, I confess, so we went back to the ABSA and, to avoid queuing we used the ATM. We went back and queued to get our remaining Rand, and the extra we'd withdrawn, exchanged for rupees. That took time, requiring passport to be copied, boarding pass checked, various pieces of paper signed, etc. Eventually we got the million million rupees and went to queue to get thorough security. 

That was a long queue, occasionally and irritatingly queue jumped by random people who seemed not to have to queue. But never fear, that long queue served to shorten the queue to go through immigration. But queue we did and, once through, we went to queue to get the tax refund on our purchases in South Africa. This also required my passport to be copied, boarding pass validated, various papers signed.... you get the pattern. But I also had my finger print taken this time, all for far less than we anticipated because several of our purchases were made in Swaziland and didn't qualify for refund of tax. We're now claiming back about £15 but it's better than a slap in the belly with a wet kipper.

Cheque finally in hand, with a vague instruction to get it cashed "downstairs", we searched for a NEDBANK because that's what it had on the cheque but there isn't one in the airport we discovered. Now seething we headed back to the refund desk for me to get something off my chest. No queuing this time! Oh no. "What am I supposed to do with this, pray," I enquired of the woman who served us. "There's no NEDBANK in the airport," I helpfully informed her. She explained that she had never said it had to be NEDBANK but the bank just underneath the very place in which she worked would cash it.

That turned out to be a foreign exchange place I think so we queued to collect our fortune. Passport copied again, boarding pass checked. Is this becoming repetitive? We have been in the airport now for an hour and forty five minutes and all we have done is queue, had my passport photocopied five times, my boarding pass checked six times, signed something six times and had my finger print taken, all to collect fifteen quid and get on a plane. 

"It will be 185 Rand after deduction of the fee." That is just what I needed. An anger-inducing farce now became genuinely funny. Our reward for almost two hours queuing amounted to about £8 which we now had no time to spend! We grabbed bars of chocolate and rushed off to the boarding gate just in time to ...... queue to board.

Funnily enough after we'd taxied a while the pilot came on to tell us we'd be a little delayed because we were in a queue for take off!

The plane was great, the food excellent and the flight only marred a little by my inflight entertainment failing and it taking ten minutes for anyone to respond to my call. I shared my discontent with the cabin manager expressing concern that, whilst the failure of my screen was not an emergency it could have been one - I might have been having a heart attack. He helpfully, and I have to say, apologetically, explained that they answer calls in order. Seems I was held in f*+¥< g queue!"

PS What an eye opener Soweto was yesterday. Nothing like we expected.

Safari over

Our last drive this morning before saying farewell to Sabi Sands. Having been out five times already and seeing so many amazing things I feared I might feel I'd done enough but, instead, I couldn't wait to get back in the saddle. When I say saddle, you know what I mean and the number of horses under us was impressive. This baby took us on some hairy rides, 

none more so than this morning's. Heather almost went overboard at one point! Tracker Ronald at the front and our ranger Brogan at the wheel were a star turn and our Swiss and German safari companions for the last three days were just terrific. What great people we've met on our travels.

And talking of meeting, this magnificant herd of elephants was our first sighting of the day and they were just unbelievable.

One huge beast was within touching distance of me, a wee one took us on, facing the jeep and trumpeting before backing off to its mum, another just lay in the road for a nap. It was as if they were there to perform just for us. Even the ranger laughed aloud at the antics and I'd have happily turned back and called it a day after such a joyous start.

But we hurtled on quite some distance, the ranger keeping his cards close to his chest. There's method in this: first it builds up a feeling of anticipation and avoids disappointment if the planned target has moved on.

This time it hadn't and we tracked this beautiful leopard for some minutes.

This little pussy cat actually sniffed our tracker's foot before moving on. Doesn't look like he would kill you in an instant if you got down from the jeep does he?

And that, if anyone is reading this, is the end of the most extraordinary three days we've ever had. This romantic, exotic dream of being on safari has been realised and it exceeded all our expectations. We saw the Big Five, and a whole lot more, and nearly all our sightings were close up and personal. 

I asked the ranger what's the best thing he's EVER seen and he said the wild dog kills on our first morning: he said that was such a rare thing to actually witness. And we were there. It has been a real privilege to see these simply beautiful animals in their territory, on their terms. No pictures or words can quite convey what it feels like to be there and see them for real and this has to rank as one of the very best experiences of our trips so far.

I may blog again but it will probably be to say, "We sat on the beach, ate, sat on the beach, ate, sat on the beach...." You get the idea!

Our last evening safari

We spent ages seeing nothing this evening. I'd managed to get the iconic yawning hippo this morning 

But we were so desperate, it seemed, that we were looking at tortoises, caterpillars and chewing on leaves to identify tannin. Oh dear what a come down. But heyho, that's how it goes and we just drove on and on.

In fact, it turned out, it was all delaying tactics to take our turn with the other few jeeps in the reserve to see THE most cute and gorgeous leopard cubs.

And then he climbed off his log and went and found mum.

We have one drive left in the morning but that is surely going to be a boring drive round the park.

The other critters get more interesting

Now that we're way beyond the Five and only black rhino short of the 'full house' all the other animals take on even greater appeal. It's hard to believe that this hyena is more closely related to the cute little mongoose below than it is to the dogs. The reason is far too intimate to go into but suffice to say you need to be a bit anal to be interested. (Look it up and don't blame me if it's wrong: I'm only saying what our ranger said.)

Ain't he cute?

Though we've seen a fair few elephants, having one close enough to touch - literally - was wonderful. This picture is with no zoom at all. In fact I didn't have a wide enough lens.

After our drive this morning we walked for an hour back to the lodge, escorted by our guide with loaded rifle. 

We have two more drives to go and surely it can only be 'top ups'.

This is just daft

If you've been following me you'll know we've clocked off the Five. We added wild dogs with the bonus of a kill this morning and then this evening guess what. "What?" I hear you ask. "Surely not another of the rare Super Eight."

First we saw a couple of elephants having a disagreement:

And the.... but yes. The most beautiful creature imagineable: this utterly stunning cheetah, just three metres from us:

As we headed back towards the lodge we stopped for sundowners but I confess, after our 5am start, I rather envied this beaut:

Aww. Pwitty, pwitty puddy tat.

Well my good Ranger, you have only the black rhino to find. Not a chance. We did see loads of rhino, elephant, zebra, a jackal, a puff adder as well as these by the way. But they don't quite match up to the wondrous beauty of the big cats. We cannot believe that our luck continues: and how lucky we are.

Lady Luck holds

You know I said in the last blog that we'd seen the Big Five, now we were getting greedy, but with our luck ..... Well, guess what!

We were woken at 5am, still without power from last night's storm. A couple of adolescent antelope were outside our lodge having a play fight:

Coffee and on the 'road' - not a touch of tarmac in sight by the way. The sky was perfect, the temperature ideal: cool but by no means cold. And this guy, our tracker

indicates that we should leave the track and we push our way into the bush, taking out trees and shrubs as we go, to sit and watch a splendid male lion resting up, too hidden for good pictures but handsome none the less. We move on some more and then suddenly all hell breaks loose: wild dog. 

Lady Luck is with us. You just don't get to see wild dog. And it's a pack. There's a squeal. Our ranger hurls the jeep into the bush and we see an impala taken down by the pack and devoured in about forty seconds. Literally. A second squeal and another kill, just a couple of jeep turns away from us. In two or three minutes we had seen something so far out of the ordinary the ranger reckoned he would not be believed when he told his colleagues: he had never seen a wild dog kill before and the tracker, who has been here ten years, has never seen two. They both seemed as thrilled as we were. 

Yum, yum. Attractive chap isn't he, especially after a Big Mac. Actually it was a little one.

So that leaves just black rhino - there's only two in the entire park! - and cheetah. 

We remain without power so these two blogs are not going to work quite as I intended because they'll both be published once we're back on line but I wanted to write them now while my heart beat is still racing and the specialness of what we've witnessed is still fresh in my mind.

Sabi Sands Safari

Having driven eight hours from Kruger to Johannesburg yesterday we had a good night in a very nice hotel before being picked up and taken to the airport to fly back again. Doh Trailfinders! When we landed at the delightful Nelspruit airport we were picked up again, just the two of us, and driven by Clint to the Idube Lodge in the Sabi Sands Private Game Reserve. It was a two hour drive, the first hour of which on the road we travelled yesterday.

We reached the lodge which is just too wonderful to describe, so I won't now but I have to share what happened next. 

We had some lunch and went for our first drive with Roland (I think) our spotter - he sits perched over the bonnet of the jeep - and our ranger Brogan. We saw kudu, buffalo, Impala - they actually have three stripes on the rear forming an M so no longer are they the KFC of the jungle but the McDonalds - but they are just ten a penny when you've seen the Big Five like what we have. 

And then our spotter had, well, spotted, and Brogan proceeded to drive the jeep through, and I mean through, the brush. A hundred meters from where we were (so how in heaven's name did he see it) we got this:

This magnificent beast was just three metres from us, lying on a termite hill. We just cannot describe how amazing this was. And we just sat there for maybe fifteen minutes admiring this beautiful, beautiful creature.

On we went and word come across the radio that there was something else worth seeing and we sat, again, just three metres from this young male taking his evening meal - not a McDonalds, apparently, but a Wimpy Wilde-beast. We saw herds of those too and that was another first.

There was a massive thunder storm going on and the rain was torrential as we sat in our uncovered jeep, trying to huddle under ponchos. We got soaked and couldn't give a damn.

We learnt from Clint that in addition to the Big Five there's the Magnificant Seven for which you add black rhino and cheetah, and for the full house you add wild dog. Well, Lady Luck is stil with us it seems and if she sticks around I'll blog again tomorrow.