Feb 16-07: Safari Day 2

Photos: various animals we saw this morning; our mid-morning stop for coffee and muffins; Solly (or ranger) & Steve; Solly walks us back to the lodge (yes, the rifle is necessary in case we meet any big cats) and shows us lion tracks

The days start early here, they wake you at 5 am with coffee and biscuits and you are off for your first game drive of the day by 5:30, before the sun is up. The animals are very active in the morning, so that’s why the early start. And we had an INCREDIBLE morning of game viewing – the guys finally found the lions they’ve been tracking for a few days, in fact we found a group of 3 females and 2 males, we got very close and spent some time with them. They are truly spectacular, I took a lot of great photos. The lions were only to be outdone by the leopards we found – the same young male from last night, Solly said, and with his mother this time. We tracked the two of them for quite a long time, and again some incredible photos. We are saw giraffes again, and two young male elephants.

After a stop for coffee (laced with Marula cream liqueur, YUM), and to view the monkeys that were close by. We walked back to the lodge with Solly, where he identified the tracks of a number of the animals, indigenous birds and plants. And just before we arrived back for lunch we saw a group of zebras. WOW, this morning has been incredible!! Another monster breakfast, and then you have the rest of the day to yourself until the evening game drive again at 4:30pm. Time to rest my aching back…lots of bouncing down dirt roads, ouch, poor back s complaining now. But it’s a very small rice to pay for having such an awe-inspiring experience.

The heat of the day is already upon us, and its brutal, well into the 30s, maybe hotter, so there isn’t much movement around the lodge in this kind of heat. Steve and I took a dip in our plunge pool (ahhh. SO nice in the heat), reviewed the morning’s photos etc., and I did a little blog writing. There are two computers available here, but with internet connection speeds from the dark ages, so I am hoping to at least get the blog up and some photos on there, but the rest of the Flickr shots will have to wait until we reach civilization again. Lunch will be served in an hour or two, followed by more lazing about until our game drive at 4:30 pm again. Tomorrow we are going to opt to a visit to the local village with Solly, where you can see how folks live here, visit the school etc., and I plan to book a looonnngggg massage with Nonku in the afternoon. As you can tell, life is pretty rough here at our luxury game lodge…

Feb 15-07: Safari Day 1

After a half a day of flights and travel (including a flight on single engine plane that landed us on the dirt airstrip here at the lodge), we arrived at Djuma Game Lodge in the Sabi Sands district of the Kruger National Park. The weather is very hot, bright sun, will have to be careful as I will burn very easily here, both of us will. The lodge is beautiful, built out in the bush here, with a common deck area, dining room and lounge, a small craft shop etc. They even have a little hut offering massages and other treatments ( might avail myself of that tomorrow).

We arrived in time to catch the tail end of lunch, they make an extensive buffet spread here for breakfast, lunch and dinner. Our room (hut) is gorgeous, huge bed, cool concrete floors, big bathroom with a big tub, outdoor shower, and plunge pool outside (private) with a second attached “hut” that acts as a lounge. And a private viewing deck. The property has a bit of higher electrical fencing to keep the elephants from getting too close, but the impala and nyala and other creatures can all come quite close, and do during the day.

We had just enough time to settle and unpack and then get ready for the afternoon/evening game drive. First tea and cake is served on the common deck, and then you depart with your guide about 4:30 pm and are gone until 7:30 pm. Our ranger is a local fellow named Solly Sithole, who rides with his spotter, who rides up front on the jeep to help spot and track game while Solly drives. They are very great guys, and really good at what they do – often they stop to follow lion or leopard tracks in the sand of the roads (you can see from one of my photos them doing just that). You ride in open Landrovers that fit about 6-9 people – we are riding with the same group, two other couples from England. There are a lot of dirt roads (bumpy), and they also go off the roads through the grass when they are trying to find more elusive game.

Our first ride seemed uneventful for the first hour, with just impala, water bucks and nyala spotted … but the rangers keep in radio contact with each other, which helps when one of the “Big 5” is spotted and they can direct the other jeep to the area. The other group directed us to an area where a young leopard was resting – so we got very close and I took a few photos, although the light was waning. Its is truly INCREDIBLE to see animals this way, and even more amazing how close you can get – they seems totally un-phased by the jeeps. Solly said that it was a young leopard (about 1 ½ years old) whose mother was most likely out hunting – they say with their mothers for about 2 years. We also saw a few giraffe, also very beautiful. All in all, a good evening’s ride.

Back to the lodge for evening drinks and dinner at 8pm where we got to know our fellow guests a little better. The jeep dropped us all off at our respective huts/rooms, you are not allowed to walk the short distance between your room and the lodge after dark, without a ranger as escort, for the danger of the lions and leopards. So Solly fetched us for dinner after, and also walked us back when we were done. All the staff eats with you, which is wonderful – I met Nonku, who runs the little spa treatment place, she grew up in Durban, and we had a really interesting conversation about South Africa. I was telling her how shocking Steve and I found the living conditions for so many blacks here, and described for her our system on health care, welfare etc. And we compared wages for general labour (the $15 per hour we pay of our house cleaner, for example, which equals R90; compared to the R40 per day that cleaners or general labourers make here), and she was completely shocked by what I told her. She told me there is no minimum wage, now legislation governing work hours, no welfare, no health care, nothing – if you are poor and unemployed, you go hungry, and if you are sick and cannot afford the health care, you simply die. She would love to leave South Africa and go anywhere else she said…I guess it’s a hard place to try and get by, even for someone like her with some training, given that wages are so bad, and its hard to get ahead. The staff work full time here, a number of weeks on (6 for the rangers, 8 weeks for others) with 10-14 days off to go home and see their families. Even though Solly lives 15 minutes away, he must stay in camp, and may not see his family for weeks at a time. And they all work from early morning to late at night, so it seems there are not a lot of rules for limited working hours etc. Again, I am continually amazed at how hard people work here, and for so little.

Feb 15-07: On to the Kruger

We are now in the JoBurg airport, waiting for our flight to the Kruger to depart. We are on our way to Djuma Game Lodge for 3 nights. Unsure of internet connection, so if you don't see anything for a few days, you'll know there was none! There will probably a million animal pictures from there, so stay tuned...in any event, we are both well and really looking forward to the lodge.

Feb 14-07: Theme for the Day: Caffeination before Inebriation

Photos: view of hils from Boekenhoutskloof tasting room; view at Zorgvleit estate; Steve sampling at Ernie Els; Ernie Els Els Estate view;

Well, its official, Steve and I now have a new record for drinking – 9:30 am! We got an early start to our wine tasting tour this morning, starting right after another lovely breakfast at the B&B. We drove towards Franshoek today, and visited the estates of Thelema, Zorgvleit, Boekenhoutskloof and Ernie Els.

After so much excellent wine tasting, we realized we wanted to take some home – unfortunately with the way the carry on restrictions are these days with fluids, so we decided to go for the gusto, and ship home a case, which is exactly what we did today! So twelve lovely bottles are jetting their way to Vancouver right now, and should arrive somewhere between 6 to 18 days from now (they might even beat us home!). The duty on it is probably going to be a killer, but we are still happy we did it, and are really looking forward to having these bottles – some of each are drinkable now, and some of which can be stored for a number of years and will only improve with age.

So, a run down of the estates we visited and tasted:

Meerlust – founded in 1757 and which has been in the Meerlust family ever since. They have some excellent bottles, and we purchased the Rubicon, a red blend which is their flagship wine.
Morgenhof – another beautiful and very old estate, they had a view cool new cellar below that we looked at, and tried some excellent bottles here; we bought their signature red here and a Late Harvest dessert wine.
Fairview – since we can a good selection of their bottles in Canada, we didn’t buy here, but had an excellent lunch on the veranda.
Bellevue – a small estate, hard to find, but wow, EXCELLENT reds – Fiona & Jim, we bought you their signature red blend called Tumara, we hope you like it! Puppy sitting present! It’s in the case on its way to Vancouver, so hopefully we won’t have to wait too long for its arrival…
Thelema – another gorgeous little estate, probably one of the loveliest natural settings high on the hills; we bought
Zorgvliet – gorgeous estate, just stunning; we bought a nice bottle of Viognier here, but drank it the same evening!
Boekenhoutskloof – one of the best we visited, they make the Porcupine Ridge and Wolftraap lines that we can get in Canada; we tried (and bought) and excellent limited edition Viognier, not available outside the estate (one of these bottles is for you Andy); and their signature “Chocolate Block” red, which will only improve with age.
Ernie Els – partly owned by the famous golfer, and a relatively new estate only established in 1999, but the wines are exceptional (with price tags to match), and the tasting room is also a gorgeous architectural wonder, only outdone by their equally stunning location, high on a hill outside Stellenbosch, with views of almost 360 degrees. Wow.

Our day ended on another excellent note, the owners of the B&B decided to do a braai (BBQ) for all those guests who were interested, since it was Valentine’s Day, and many restaurants locally were fully booked. So we hung out wit the other guests (lots of guests from Denmark, Norway, England, Holland staying here), everyone was lovely, so we drank a nice rose, ate BBQ fish and steaks, and got to know everyone. The very best part of traveling sometimes, being able to meet people from all over the world…

Feb 13-07: Wine Tasting Day 1

Photos: Morgenhof Estate; lunch at Fairview; dinner and sunset at Tokara

Unfortunately, all good things must come to an end…Jane and Karl headed out this morning, they are on their way to JoBurg and a game reserve near there in the Pilanesberg, as they must head back to Vancouver on the 16th. So after a lovely breakfast here poolside, we dropped them at Cape Town airport (just a short 30 minute drive from here), and headed back to begin the serious wine drinking portion of our trip itinerary!

We began the first day of our 2 full days in Stellenbosch, driving around and visiting some of the hundreds of wineries. The countryside is absolutely stunning, and the weather is hot and clear—just perfect for our time here. Our John Platter wine guide has turned out to be invaluable with our touring around, although there are so many wines that he rates as 4 stars and 5 stars, so that even if we just stuck to those wineries with a range of range that are rated that high, there are still dozens of places in the region to visit. And we also tried to choose places that perhaps we could NOT buy their wines in Canada, so as to find something truly special and one-of-a-kind. So, its kind of just throw a dart at the book, and see where things take you!

The wine prices here are incredibly reasonable, of the bottles we have seen that we also purchase in Canada, anywhere from ½ to 1/3 of the price we would pay in Vancouver. It would just make you cry. South Africans are spoiled by an abundance of excellent and reasonably priced wines…another asset to add to a country that is already rich with merits!

We visited a few estates today, including Meerlust, Morgenhof, Fairview and Bellevue, but I’ll include all of them under the complete list for the Feb 14th blog entry. Needless to say, we had a very fun day, really enjoyable tasting all the wines, and I only got us lost once, which I figured wasn’t too bad. One highlight is our lunch on the veranda of the Fairview estate (yes, Andy, that Fairview, one of our favourite viogniers) – Fairview also produces the Goats Do Roam line, hence the logo, which comes from this weird brick tower in the front yard, with a goal ladder on it, and these goats that sit in there and look out the windows. I guess it must be baited with a lot of food. Their restaurant has an extensive cheese menu (much of which they produce there), so we order a number of samplers, a delicious farm salad for two and fresh baked bread. Sitting in the sun, having our lunch made us feel incredibly spoiled indeed!

Our hosts at the B&B helped us to make a reservation at an incredible restaurant/winery called Tokara, which was just a 10 minute drive away – it was a pass, so somewhat elevated, with an incredible sunset view over the Stellenbosch area valley. Wow. Dinner was really spectacular, I had the ostrich fillet, Steve had a SA line fish here called kingklip. With two glasses of wine each, port, appetizers and desert, it came to the equivalent of $120CDN (including tip). We are continually stunned by how reasonable it is to eat out here – a dinner of similar caliber in Vancouver would have cost us 2-3 times as much. Needless to say, with such food and setting, we couldn’t have asked for a more romantic evening – a little early Valentine’s present to ourselves!

Feb 12-07: Travel to Stellenbosch

Photos: Veregelen wine estate & Moyo dancers; Jane and me with our faces painted

We traveled back from Plettenberg Bay to Stellenbosch today, so much of the day was taken up with travel. However, the weather lifted, so we were able to enjoy much better views on the return trip. We are now back nearer to Cape Town in the middle of the wine region, in a town called Stellenbosch. Other communities within a half hour drive include Paarl and Franschoek, and literally hundreds of wineries all around here. The setting is incredible, mountains in the distance, just stunning. So, we did manage to squeeze in a winery, Vergelegen, which, according to the South Africa wine god (John Platter guide), had the #1 white wine for 2007, so we had to try (and buy) that bottle. The estate is one of the oldest in the region, built in 1700, so the “homestead” house is gorgeous (makes it sound like some shack, but as you can see from the photos, it’s anything but). And there were rose gardens, flowers everywhere, 300-year-old camphor trees, a huge herb garden, lilies, jasmine, and wisteria. The aroma of the flowers and herbs is incredible. A very peaceful place. Steve’s mining conference that he was at last week, Indaba, they host their opening night reception on the lawn here. We had tried to get tickets, but with no luck. But next time (and yes, there will be a next time), we are going to try and make sure we go!

The place we are staying is called The Beautiful South, in a very quiet residential neighbourhood of Stellenbosch. The website for this place does not do it justice, it’s really a great B&B, and our hosts have been great. They are full up right now, so about 15 people staying, so it can accommodate quite a few people, although it doesn’t feel large at all. There is a common use dining room and living room with an honesty bar that has a full selection of wines and beers at the same price you would pay at the liquor store, which is very gracious of them. This is a university town, and of its 65,000 residents, over 22,000 are students at the university, I am told. Consequently it makes for a relatively safe community, where people are out walking late at night and early in the morning, a big change from Cape Town and JoBurg where that is generally not advised.

This evening was the last one that Karl and Jane would be spending with us, so I made a reservation at the place called Moyo – it’s on the local Spier wine estate, and is focused on African cultural, food and entertainment. It’s kinda touristy, but also a lot of fun, and the entertainers were great – you can see that the light in there was very low, but I actually like some of the effects of their (very fast!) dancing with the photos. Dinner was a buffet affair, all these stations set up with a variety of traditional African dishes (a lot of meat of course!), but it was very good. Of course, with any buffet, one tends to over-eat way too much!! Oh, and they paint these little white design on your forehead, like all the staff have, so that’s what’s on our faces in the photos…

After coming back to our place, we enjoyed that great bottle of Vergelegen white, and collapsed into bed after a very long day…

Feb 11-07: Pachyderms & Primates (AKA minkees and trunks)

Well, we had an INCREDIBLE day today, we got to pet and interact with elephants (which is totally cool, by the way!), and visit many monkeys. We visited the Elephant Sanctuary and Monkey Land, another sanctuary, both places where former pets or lab animals have found refuge. The rain was off and on all day, so you can part of the elephant photos are us drenched in rain. We got to walk “hand-in-trunk” with them, feed and pet them. They have very coarse skin of course, but also fine hairs all over their body – apparently they feel through these hairs, as their skin is so thick and not very sensitive. The take food into the top of their trucks and then literally blow it in their mouths. When they hold your hand with their trunks (VERY gently as well), you can feel their warm breathe on your hand, its very cool. And when they take food, they literally “hoover” it up into their trunks so they can hold it and then transfer it in their mouths. The back of their ears are life giant leaves, the veins carrying blood into the soft tissue. Wow, that was quite an experience, nothing like it in the world! And the monkeys are also incredible, we took lots of photos there as well. Check out the Flickr site!