BootsnAll Travel Blogs

been a busy time since the Skydive: I spent a day at Tsitsikamma reserve at the mouth of Storms river – nice walk to a waterfall, and then I took a different way back and managed to split my shorts as I jumped a couple of boulders: ended up at a restaurant with my ass hanging out!

left Plett and went to Cape St. Francis and then onto Jeffreys Bay (J-Bay) where I met up with the two Irish guys again (Keiran and Peter) bought some clothes at the Billabong factory shop (it would have been rude not to) and then drank a shedfull of alcohol till the early hours – oh and bought a surfboard for R400 (approx 28 quid) WHOOPSIE!

got up at 7am feeling a little….rough and was promptly bought another beer by the barman!……sadly, it worked: felt MUCH better after it (hic) Then the 3 of us walked to Supertubes which is a top surf section of the beach (and what J-bay is famous for) I left the Irish there and drove to Ikeys house in Seaview, PE. I met up with the Irish there again at the beach the next day (that day I managed to drive 200 miles between the house and the beach….54km 6 times!) another night out with a bit of clubbing thrown in – and a stay at a hostel I wasnt supposed to be at (and a chat with the security guy to let me out without again!)

WEll, I managed to find Coffee Bay …after breaking a wheel on the potholed excuse for a road to it! I wasnt sure about the place at first , but MAN! it grows on you!..I got a free surf lesson from Rheyno which  was kewl (fab location to take surf lessons with cliffs and lush green scenery all ovver, not to mention the Xhosa ‘rondavel’ houses peppering the landscape…beautiful! Its in the Wild Country which is renowned for the rugged coastline and nice bays (between East London and Durban)
Learnt the BUFFALO rules in the bar at night (left hand drinking only or finish yur drink in one!…sadly for everyone else me and Bri (nice guy from Hull on holiday with his equally nice girlie, Kelly) spent the whole of the next 2 nights catching EVERYONE, WHOOHOO!!!!!

went for a walk to the Hole in the Wall….but didnt get there: thats cos I went 180 degrees in the wrong direction!…nice walk anyhoo then when I checked out, the girl on reception cajoled me into staying another night, by giving me a free drive to the H.i.t.W. + another free surf lesson AND 2 free drinks at the bar!!!! (actually, I think the reason she did it was so I would give Joseph a lift down to J-Bay the next day…still, who am I to complain! I also brought a girl (Alaia) from the Basque country down too….. quite an eventful 650km watching 3 crashes and 3 water tanks rolling down the road towards us with 2 black guys chasing after them!!!

anyhoo, we watched dolphins and whales on the 3 hour walk to the H.i.t.W. and then swam around the bay with waves crashing thru the wall….VERY nice place!

WOOHOO!!!

its all happenin! ….did a skydive today over Plettenberg bay (apparently its in the top 2 places in world to skydive due to the gorgeous views!): strapped to a guy for a tandem jump which should have been 10,000ft but actually was a smidgeon over 11,000!…and we saw whales in the water as we climbed (which was nice)

jumped and did a couple of somersalts before levelling out for a 43 sec (approx) freefall!!!!!

ABSOLUTELY FABULOUS (as the saying goes)

would do it again if wasnt so damned expensive! (R1700 with DVD)

…not done a skydive yet?….poof!                ;^)

oops, I did it again!

the highest bungy jump IN THE WORLD!!! 216m from a roadbridge (Bloukrans) in Tsitsikama, Republic of South Africa

WOOHOO!!!!

so, whilst I was on the Game Ranger course, I applied for an extension to my visa for RSA…I paid my money and was told it would be ready in a week or so.

10 days later and it still wasnt ready but I was told by the nice lady that I could go travelling and they would ring me when it was ready, at which point I would tell them the nearest Home Affairs office to me at that time and they would fax the details there so that office could stamp my passport

2 weeks later and I duly get a call from the nice lady. I popped into the Home Affairs office at PE only to be told that in NO CIRCUMSTANCES would they stamp my passport!…they wouldnt speak to the nice lady at Phalaborwa and then proceeded to tell me that I should be deported immediately! or go back to Phalaborwa that night…and because I was doing vountary work, I was in breach anyway and they should be calling the poilce immediately!!!!!!! QUITE A SHOCK, i CAN TELL YOU!

even the nice lady who I got to ring her couldnt get her to change her mind!

so, PLAN B: the nice lady said if I could post the passport to someone local to her, she would stamp the passport and then said person could send it back to me!…sorted!

…….except it now appears that my passport has been lost in the post!!!!!!

UNBELIEVABLE!!!!! the saga continues!

…so 980km later I met the team and the 2 ACE students Ros and Tina. We caught Springbok and Mountain Reedbok for a couple of days (and got to fly in the chopper pretty regularly again WOOHO!!)  in a nice farm near Bedford. I also went on my first real ‘hunt’..in that an animal was shot: we were supposed to  shoot a Duiker (little tiny antelop) but couldnt find one so went for a Springbok…turned out it was a Kalihari bok which is the bigger variety (whoopsie!) what was interesting was we could actually see the bullet flying thru the air at the animal (4 x due to Ikey’s inability to  shoot straight ;^) ) crazy, I thought

then the whole team went down to PE (Port Elizabeth) to Ikey’s fab beachfront house for the weekend..mainly so we could go to a bar on the beach to watch the Rugby world cup final….the whole bar (and it was a biggie) was packed with Bok supporters…and me. WE had a fab night cheering the teams, I was given roses by a couple of ladies (and guys??!!) when we lost but we all got smashed and had a great time. Shame about the scoreline though, eh?

next day bright and early Ikey woke everyone…and then went to bed leaving us all a bit groggy at 5:30 in the morning with nowt to do!….except laff at me, seeing as I lost my voice with all the singing and shouting the night before

anyhoo, then we went back to another couple of game reserves and caught more animals between LOTS of trips back and forwards to PE (Ikey wanted to keep seeing his new baby daughter, Inka )

THEn we got to catch Giraffe! which was damn exciting – WOO! theyre big animals…the bulls can weigh up to 1200kg!!! we caught 22 with 3/4 days and only one died (which is a good hit rate as it can be dodgy catching them: basically they are darted from teh Chopper, then the ground crew race around (on bakkies

) like eejits to get close, then the guys jump out and run after the giraffe to trip it up with ropes!!!! once its goes down, they get a reversal drug to wake them and are blindfolded and ears blocked, then ropes are attached so we can drag/guide it back on its feet and into the waiting trailer/truck.

Lots of fun and pretty hard work (except for me as I just stood around mostly, taking photos!

oh, and Ikey and his colleagues arranged tickets for us all to go to Bloemfontein to watch the Cheetahs pay teh Lions n the Currie cup final!…lots of drink later and the Cheetahs won a great game  – fab atmosphere with fields taken up by affrikaaners braaing (bbqing) and drinking vast quantities of alcohol. I eventually gave up and went to sleep in the bakkie while everyone else got even more hammered till the late early hours! We all got to stay at a ‘friend’ of Tokmans house…which was nice

I hired a car and spent 3 days in Kruger park: its a huge park – the size of Wales I’m told and has a number of biomes in there, from sandy veld to bushveld etc.

I found an ellie carcass that no-one knew about and saw a herd of 200+ buffalo cross the road in front of me, I also saw lots of nice birds (feathered unfortunately) like Kori Bustard and a family of Ground Hornbill which crossed the road around me…nice photos again (these are VERY rare birds on the Red list)

After staying overnight at the Oliphant camp in Kruger I left early down a small track…..spotting a ‘road kill’ at the side of the road, I parked up next to it realising that it was a BIG spotted hyena!I moved closer and closer until it was right beside the car so that I leant out of the open window right above its head……..which then jerked up so that its eyes..and jaws were literally 9″ from my camera which was right in front of my face! BLIMEY ! (as me granda used to say) I nearly pooped!!! anyhoo, it dropped its head back down and at that point I could see its chest heaving as it breathed. I took some quick photos and then moved back thinking that maybe it was about to die….well, blow me if it didnt wait another 10 minutes or so and then just get up and trot off!!! no sign of any injuries at all!!! just goes to show you NEVER get out of yer car!!!

After Kruger I set off through the Blyde river canyon (Gods window and loads of  waterfalls) staying at Graskop overnight (in a power cut, due to the mismanagement of RSA power generation) then I drove down to Sodwana bay to learn to dive at the Coral Divers scuba centre. All was going well at this fab place until I burst some blood vessels in my ear…in the blinking pool!!!!! so that was the end of that! I did go out with the dive boat just for the ride and got to see some humpback whales passing by….which was nice.

I also had a drive around the Mkuze game reserve…..which was OK, until I drove into a bushfire!!! completely surrounded, I had to drive completely blind thru the smoke (and very small flames, it has to be said) and hope it would be better thru the other side – fortunately it was!…a quick cheese toastie to settle me nerves and it was back to the Bay to watch the RSA provincial cup (Currie cup) semi’s on TV. drink provided by a group of gents that worked for a brewery and brought a few cool boxes of……..samples. nice.

following that I drove into KwaZulu natal to check out Rorkes Drift – the scene of the battle from which the film Zulu was conjured. its not that great a place – theres nothing left of the original building – however theres another battlefield not far away calld Ilsandwala (I think) where the zulus smashed our forces a few days prior to Rorkes drift. A MUCH more atmospheric place…quite moving really.

A drive over to the Drakensberg mountains then next day left me overnight in a lovely hostel/lodge with a fabulous mountainous backdrop , however only one night here as I had to leave to meet Ikey and the Matopi Game Capture team again near Cradock

OK an update: i DID pass the Gmae Ranger course…in fact I got top marks with 83% (I think) WOOHOO!!!!!!!!!

The course was set in the Garonga reserve just outside Hoedspruit in the Limpopo province of RSA, they have 4 of the big 5 (no Buffalo). as previously noted, we had a GREAT sighting of 2 male cheetah which were firstly walking along the road as we approached them, then they walked into the bush at the side of the road and lay around for quite a while and then moved along further scent marking as they went.

We also saw a few lions – both male and female – including one which was following a group of 5 Giraffe as they passed just behind the farmhouse we stayed in. We also had nice views of ellies and a group (raft) of hippos which were sleeping in a river section…these were my first hippo -MAN theyre big!

We also got to see a group of 3 lions hunting a blue Wildebeest on the airstrip out the front of the farmhouse…it got away due to the complete stoopidness of the lions! We saw a couple of hyena with a jackal – which was a bit unusual (HEY! its all blinking unusual to a guy from South Shields!!!!)

We had a change of course leader on the 2nd week of the course: Johan’s wife Natalie appeared to go into labour which meant they had to leave pronto to get to Jo’burg (I think) for medical assistance, meantime Martin stood in for the rest of the course (and helped get the course back on track (sic) as we seemed to be doing less than we thought we should at that point)

warthogs!…they are all over Garonga – and sooo used to being around people that they come thru the eectric fence surrounding the house and graze on the lawn..which means we have to chase them out again (have you seen the size of the tusks on them things??!! )

The rifle shooting was a hoot too: I did well as did just about everyone, I think..particular mention must go to one of the ladies on the course who accidentally fired the weapon before she had it at her shoulder..gave her, Johann and the rest of us quite a shock (luckily it was pointing in the right direction) anyhoo, all praise to Pam for completing the shoot and then going back for more once her nerves had settled

I promise I’ll get photos asap are…

well, I left Tuli after a total of 20 weeks there!…FABULOUS weeks too!

As a thank you for my persistence in hanging on ;^) I was taken to the Molemane project run by Brett and his ozzie sidekick Clint. I arrived after an 11 hour drive! with Theo and Rob (Theo is doing a DVD for ACE….Rob is another student)

Molemane is VERY different to Tuli: its a plains reserve so comnpletely different animals including: Hartebeest, Blesbok, Buffalo …oh and Rhino (the white flavour)

we’ve done drives every day to check on animal numbers, fence condition etc and had a superb time in general (I wish I had more time to write about them…hopefully I’ll get some time in the near future to redo this post

anyhoo, most memorable times include: walking Buffalo (which means walking thru known Buffalo territory) which may not sound like owt special till you understand that Buffs are now THE most dangerous anuimal to humans in RSA !!! we had at least 2 close calls on one walk: we found “number 42” Buff in some bushes which we almost walked onto (she’s dying so VERY dangerous) then later Brett left us by a few metres to recover an old fence rod…..as he got back to us he realised that there were 3 buffs stood just behind us in another thicket!!!!

Fun with Rhino: we walked thru a thicket and found ourselves maybe 25m from 2 rhino lying half asleep!!!…a quick about face and we walked away…this time!

we also did a sleep out in a thicket (overnight, obviously) we had 3 (plus 2 distant) rhino only 20m away and approachingto 10m from us….just inquisitive, Brett said!…shows how odd humans are tho: we went to sleep with them stood only 10m away…it was ‘old hat’ by then!

more to add later (hopefully)

we got a fleeting view of another leopard after Stuart spotted fresh tracks at a koppie: he got out to follow the tracks whilst I drove the Landie with students around the other side to see what we could see…as I drove, the leopard crossed the track and disappeared into the bush….shame was, I was the only person not to see it as I was concentrating on driving!

Whilst driving a twice weekly Game count in the Hi-lux, we found a male lion lying at a road junction!! – theres never been a male lion in Tuli before!! we stopped about 50m from it and waited, eventually after a minute or so, the lion got upo, stretched and then started walking along the road towards us!…he got within 5m of the front of the car, before turning off the road and coming to us from the side. he walked to within 6 or 7m of us, then lay down and stared at us for a while – with big yellow eyes that dont seem to give anything away…strange really. Then he yawned got up and turned his back on us as if the photoshoot was over. we took the hint and drove off to leave him in peace. Sadly we havent seen hide nor mane of him since

I sat with Stuart one Sunday afternoon and fixed the CD player which wasnt giving full volume correctly – reason being, Stuart had made a CD of hyaena and lion calls which we wanted to play at night to attract the animals. Anyhoo, we drove to Lekkerpoet one night and sat at the ‘pans’ (flats) and started playing the CD. Within a few minutes of this we had one hyaena wandering around us – but at a distance – and lots of jackal coming to see what the noise was all about. Unfortunately, at this point the CD burst into flames!!! (which explained the damage seen previously inside the player) and flattened the battery in the process! so after ripping the CD player out, we had to jump out of the car and push start it to drive out of danger!!!…MAD!!!

15 minutes or so later, we had hooked up a laptop thru the home hifi we had taken along and played the calls through that (speakers standing ont he roof of the car!) within 10 minutes, we had 2 hyaena right next to the car and got some great shots of it (at this stage I was out of the car, standing on the running boards to get the shots) LUSH!!

finally this week we were returning from an unsuccessful night drive around Lekkerpoet, when we spotted an Aardwolf crossing the road in front of us! again, this is a first for Tuli..we got a great view to as it raised its mane and snarled at us before disappearing into the bush!

just a quick note: Stuart and Annelien got married onthe 21st of July (same as me sis) I was invited to the ceremony which was held below a Baobab treee in the hills (koppies) on our conservation area
anyhoo…very nice day – service in Afrikaans…which was a little different
so, it gets to about midnight – Ive had a good few drinks (I’m smashed) and Stuart asks me to drive his mum, his great aunt and his new mum in law back to the house (about 6 miles thru thick bush with wandering ellies and leopards etc.)
so off we trot…..within 50metres Ive taken a wrong route (I had a predetermined route as I didnt have a radio in the car to call for help if required) so we continue bumbling along , with the old ladies cahattering away, THEN one of them leans over my shoulder and asks ” so did you drive Landrovers in england Chuggy or is it a new skill” ….so I stopped and turned around to them and replied ” drive a Landie?….Ive never driven ANYTHING before tonight! this is the first car Ive driven in my life”

…was a very quiet drive after that. I didnt get a PEEP out of them!