Protea Park Hotel Pietersburg

... you get progressively richer and nicer estates as you move eastward. I'm in a Bed and Breakfast just outside CSIR in a neighborhood of houses all hidden behind gates and fences with signs saying that they have armed response security. It's a bit much and it makes you scared a little, no matter what your brain tells you. Plus the staff is black, who cooks and cleans for you and another black gardner. Not that it's really any ...

Today we went on a game drive at a reserve about 2 hours away. We saw a bunch of white rhinos and some giraffes and various antelope up close, but only one elephant and one hippo, both quite far away. No cats, although we were told lions and a leopard had been seen this morning. It was cool to see the rhinos, but it was a rather exhausting day stuck in a ...

... bizarre. We spent most of it in the van without getting, being driven around both areas that we were told were very dangerous, as well as quite wealthy areas (some blacks who have made a lot of money have stayed in the townships and built very nice houses there). Then we went to a very poor area, with tin shacks and no indoor bathrooms, where we were led around for a few minutes by a local ...

... of you who have seen Meerkat Manor already know what I mean. She liked to clean the bottom of my boots with her little claws, I guess in the hope of finding insects or other tasty morsels in the muck. Some of the staff said that she has bitten them in the past, but I found that she gave quite clear warning signals, so that if she was tired of being touched, she would let me know and I could easily avoid being bitten.

In addition to the usual caring for ...

... Village. Here we got to experience the different African cultures – Ndebele, Basotho, Zulu, Xhosa and Pedi, so with our tour guide (dressed as Zulu) he took us around these mini villages and were greeted by the different chiefs in each village in their native tongue (the Xhosa was difficult as they 'click' and 'cluck' in their language – Nelson Mandela's was Xhosa) and saw different unique experiences in each.


After walking through each we ...

... explaining he used to live in the house 10 years ago and we had come over all the way from New Zealand and he was wanting to show me the area. Initially she was hesitant and said wait for her husband to come home (well... wouldn't you if a complete stranger rocked on up to your place claiming they used to live there and wanting to take photos??), but as Paul 'wooed' her with his Afrikaans and asked if 'this and that was still in the house' she became accepting of us and allowed us ...

... started using the new activities that they have been observing. Fabulous! After being at HT for a week I recognized that two weeks was going to limit my ability to do a thorough job. I decided to add an extra week at Talje to ensure that there was enough time for staff training. With the extra week I'll be able to review activities and programming with everyone to make sure that everything is in place before I move on. The pictures ...

... need to be culled) and seen most of the wildlife there is to see, I'm sure. We still have not seen a leopard, which is proving a bit of a bother, however we have been assured that in this reserve, with about 2000 hectares of estate, there IS a leopard there somewhere... if he/she is inclinded to come out to play, and perhaps pose for a photograph!

We drove back to jo'berg and then flew to kruger airport to go on safari. we stayed in the MOST amazing Imbali safari lodge. My GOD. The luxury. The food. The rooms.....unbelievable. That's before we even saw the animals in kruger national park. We stayed there two nights and saw lots of impala (very common deer with an M on their backside. They literaly provide food for the other ...

First thing we w**e at the tourist office to buy our train ticket, but a slight hiccup, the train is booked out. Change of plan, we'll drive to Zimbabwe, but a phone call to Avis also put paid to that plan, no Avis rentals are to cross the Zimbabwe bord**. Frustration, so more discussions with the lovely tourist girl led to a 1.15am bus being booked from Piet**sburg South Africa, across the bord** to Bullawayo in Zimbabwe. As we w**e leaving she ...