Blogs from Mpumalanga , South Africa, Africa - page 26

Just want to type something to all; that I have much to report and no time to write. This month is the last big push on our Gr 12's who will write their final exams in November. The teachers met with parents 2 weeks ago and decided to have supervised study time at night. 7:30 until 10:00 along with classes before school, and after school sessions. Listed on the agenda for this meeting was "how to deal with destructions". I asked what they meant by that and figured out the teacher really meant distractions. (which I didn't correct, because it has a certain amount of truth to it!) What are their distractions? TV and cell phones, duh! Some parents had already taken action on this. And the teachers are pitching in heroically with all this extra ... read more

Geo: -24.9854, 31.6018Tiny Scops Owl and Epauletted Fruit Bats were resting In Satara Rest Camp, up in the trees of the parking lot for Reception , Camp Store and Restaurant .After having a great morning of game viewing we headed back to the camp. Had to stop by the store to get more ice and when we came out saw some people looking up in the trees right there in the parking lot.Walked over and the lady that was videoing told us there were Epauletted Fruit Bats in the trees right there! Looked up and there they were looking down at us. They were very interesting looking and the woman that was videoing was actually a bat expert and was at Kruger for the purpose of studying the bats of Kruger. While we were looking at ... read more

Geo: -24.9854, 31.6018It was still raining when we awakened at Pretoriuskop but we decided to go on early morning drive and see if it would clear up by the time we came back. We told Jerry and Tom we would meet them at the reception at Skukuza at noon to check in.We were in the first five cars at the gate and took off to see what we could see. We drove down to the Shitlehave dam and checked the birds out. It was misting and would sometimes rain down a little harder. Don't know if it was because of the rain but things were pretty quiet as we drove around. We also checked out Waterhole road as well and it was quiet as well. We did see some very nice giraffe and zebra while we ... read more

Geo: -25.3318, 31.011728 augustus In de vroege morgen, na weeral een uitstekend ontbijtje in de Radisson namen we de Gautrain naar de luchthaven om vandaar met een huurwagen naar Witrivier te rijden. Ongeveer een trip van 4 uur. De wegen zijn prima en het links rijden zijn we weer snel gewend. Het is wat wennen, want regelmatig zie je hier mensen gewoon de snelweg oversteken, of langs de snelweg wandelen. Op een bepaald moment moest ik remmen voor een baviaan die de weg overstak. We konden het nauwelijks geloven en waren natuurlijk veel te laat voor een foto. Het is onze eerste kennismaking met de wilde dieren. De Jatinga lodge in Witrivier waar we nu logeren is echt heel mooi. Een koloniale lodge temidden met een prachtige tuin die helemaal loopt tot aan de rivier, en ... read more

If you've been paying a attention, you'll remember that one of the bucket list reasons for coming to South Africa was to go on safari. I'm pretty sure it's the dream of anyone who's studied zoology or ecology and I spent many years drooling over photos and presentations by fellow PhDers and academics who studied baboons in Ethiopia or merecats in the Kalahari while I spent cold winter months watching goats in Scotland. Since I studied ungulates (mammals with hooves for those of you not in the know) I had stacks of papers on kudu and impala and other strange named species, and while I knew a lot about their mating behaviour and who they liked to hang out with, I couldn't have recognised one if it had wandered across the road. We had a taster ... read more