Someplace Else Kempton Park

... costs 2,000 rand (almost $300 USD) per person per day to stay in Phinda, but our tour guide company swung a favor from them and we got two drives through it for free. This was especially great for us because Phinda had lions! Were we were staying did not. We all freaked out when we saw our first family of giraffes. They are absolutely magical mammals. They are as tall as the trees. They have the most beautiful gentle gait when they run. This is because they have to control the weight of ...

We left Swaziland Sunday morning on the Baz-Bus heading south to the seaside town of St. Lucia. We passed through border control and back into South Africa getting our passports stamped along the way. We're starting to get a bit worried about our passports because we have so many stamps now were starting to run out of pages. Our overland trip from Cape Town up to Kenya takes us through 10 countries and I've only got 11 blank pages while ...

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In the morning we visited the crocodile centre in St. Lucia, and that was great. The R2 (25c) booklet was informative and enhanced our visit, and the photo opportunities were very good. There were plenty of Nile crocodiles of all ages and sizes, along with American alligators, and slender-snout crocs from West and Central Africa. I was getting some great animal photos on this trip, but not so much of the big game animals in the parks ...

I went out for a morning run on Durban's waterfront for the second day in a row, carrying my Canon Rebel XT in hopes of taking some photos of the harbor area from Victoria Embankment. I never made it that far however, as I found a bunch of runners lining up along the boardwalk for a 5K fun run which was just about to start as I ran past. I was interested in running the race even though my training had been so inconsistent, as I was always interested ...

We drove out of Umfolozi, looking for the elusive leopard, but to no avail. Had a reasonable trip to Zimbali.

We have been here 10 mins, and have already decided that we would never buy a place like this. maybe that's why the owners (that stayed at Pile-Inn and kindly let us use this place) live in the UK, and visit once a year. The bathroom window opens out onto the neighbours window. I am sure I heard them ****...The neighbour has a top of the range, low slung Merc neatly parked in ...

Your guess at pronunciation is as good as mine! Claire got as far as "hula hula"...

Another day, another game drive. Again we got lucky almost immediately, with a beautiful white rhino standing perfectly positioned for some photos before he got tired and laid down for a roll in the dust. This seemed to be a place of baths, as we would later see warthogs basking in the mud and, best of all, a herd of 20 elephants crashing their way to a waterhole to drink and have ...

From what I knew about St Lucia before getting there I had the feeling it was going to remind me of Tofino* in so much as it is at the end of a road, by the sea, and has whale watching in season. The similarities pretty much ended there; no bald eagles or bears but a large number of hippos and crocodiles in the estuary that you could easily see just by taking a walk (not too close obviously...)

We ...

... wandering across the roads. The Big Five are said to be around but we were only lucky enough to spot Elephants, Buffalo and Rhino but I guess 3 out of 5 is not too bad. I enjoyed the lazy drive around the game reserve and was very intrigued to follow a big Secretary bird while it strutted it stuff in the bush and looked for food in the form of snakes by stomping on the dry shrubs. We took a break ...

... her smile, if you can hear such things. "Ok. Thank you. Goodbye." And she was gone. Perhaps my thanks will help the next person in line, perhaps not. Perhaps my visa is ready, perhaps not. Perhaps my visa will be for a decent length of time, perhaps not. But I couldn't help but feel happy, and hopeful and amazed. I simply never thought I would feel any of those emotions in connection with Home Affairs. So off to Pretoria I will go! Fingers crossed Vusi is working on that day too!

... all. There were tons of lush plants all over, and a real laid back feel. We even bought some still alive prawns for about 2 euros a kilo!! Yummy!! Eventually a weather window big enough opened up, and we decided to attempt the passage south. This day turned out to be cursed as every boat that attempted to leave that day ran into some type of problems. It was rather eerie. Our attempt was brutal. It started as we lifted anchor and noticed that the line and buoy that we attach to our ...