Sheppard Boutique Hotel Nelspruit

... The last animal we saw just 100m from camp was a<br>big heard of buffalo that blocked the road and nearly made us late.<br><br>That evening around the braai as our meat cooked, we wondered on what<br>tomorrow would bring, one last morning in the park and still no big<br>cats. Little did we know how lucky we would be.......<br><br>Brimming with excitement we were the first out the gates and were heading for<br>Lower Sabie. The first animal we saw that morning was ...

Berg en Daal Restcamp, Kruger, 20th September 2009<br><br>We were up early and ready to queue at the gate, and yes it was a big queue. We drove towards Lower Sabie Restcamp keeping on the tar road for most of the way. Paul was beginning to get a bit disappointed as he hadn't seen many big cats in Kruger, then as luck would have it Paul spotted a leopard in a tree quite a distance from the roadside. We managed to get some quite good ...

... road, the three bus companies across the street too lazy and/or cheap to pool resources and rent a parking lot. There are no taxis either, nor telephones, so I&#8217;m pretty much left to my own resources. So I start walking. Maybe I&#8217;ll find a computer fix-it place along the way. I&#8217;d like to book my room in advance, but fail to locate a telephone. There are two within walking ...

... a machine gun should he need to protect his family. The neighbor's farm was taken over, stripped bare and then left to ruin. Many neighbors have just left the country. Sadly, it all sounds very Zimbabwe- like.With all this information and a warning to watch for hippos that blend into the road, we made a feeble attempt to find a restaurant. We soon returned to the "fortress" and had wine and cheese for dinner. Very glad we stayed here to see another side of South Africa.

... works as we later see one jumping in and out of the river beneath our tree house, just splashing around aimlessly. Jen gets very close (about 3 feet) to one before it slowly moves along. We head to Kruger, at a snail's pace as always, after another solid breakfast and I'm glad to have Richard in our land rover for the day. He's finally figured out the difference between "**** up" and ...

... have Mr. Delivery, remember Girls from Port Elizabeth? Mr. Delivery gives you a whole bunch of restaurants, with menu cards and prices and you can choose your meals. Till 2 different restaurants, you pay 5 Euro for the delivery. We have a basic kitchen and a big room with desks. This will be an internet evening. Tony orders Italian and the food is very good. I am chatting to you on line (although my girlfriends are not available) and see you tomorrow in ... Mozambique.

... them and Angela danced with the women. This obviously caught the eye of the chief and even offered me 12 goats for Angela. Hahha.... I asked for 24 and a chicken. He said no. Oh well. At the end of the show, they sang the South African national anthem underneath the South African night. Beautiful - absolutely beautiful. Earlier this morning, Angela and I had the opportunity to talk to Phil. We talked about everything. Life, love ...

Well the house has emptied out because all of the girls have left for a week to the beach. I decided to stay in Barberton and find my own adventures here, which have been easy to find. On Saturday I went to Nelspruit, which is the capitol of Mpumalanga. I went with the only other person in the house to watch the big "athletics" event, which was a track meet. They were all primary school age, so middle school and a little younger. The volunteer I was ...

... to be true]. On Wednesday, June 14, after the aforementioned breakfast, we headed on our way to our safari, just outside Kruger Park. The most entertaining portion of the drive took place at one of the handful of tollbooths along the way. I completed the transaction with the toll collector, cheerily saying "Thank you, Ester," which LJ found uproarious. [LYNNE: Yes, I giggled...and rolled my eyes! But I think Andy found this incident more funny than I did, at least at the time ...

... a shower!! but it suited our budget and was obviously popular with people of many different nationalities checking in. After checking in we went down to the bus ticketing office and booked tickets to take us to Mozambique. However it transpired we required Visa's for Mozambique and as it was Friday the Visa office would not be open until Monday, and as our time restraints prevented us from hanging around we put Mozambique on the back burner, so tomorrow its off to Kruger National Park.