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angelica
Angelica on the bakkie on her way to the airport It’s been a quiet couple of weeks. I’ve not done any trips and no elephants have invaded the compound. The photos are, I think getting better as I am taking the camera out twice a day.
On Monday, 27th April, we spotted a young giraffe with a snare round it’s back leg. As you can see from the pix it had not started cutting in yet, but unless it falls off soon, the result will be a slow and painful death, probably from gangrene. Campfire tried to get a vet organised to dart the animal and free it, but the Baluleh association would not pay for it, which rather angered me. Their argument is that giraffes are not very good at coping with anasthetics and would probably not get up again, but that sounds pretty lame to me. Poaching is getting worse in South Africa, especially since the government announced that poachers who are just doing it to feed their families wouild not be prosecuted. This gives anybody who doesn’t have rhino horns or tusks on them a ready made get out of gaol card.
The next day Angelica went home. You may remember that she is the daredevil who jumps
boomslang
I took about twenty pix to catch its tongue out off high places.The caption in her pic on the last blog got a bit mangled, but if you rearrange the letters, it all makes perfect sense. A nice way to spend the evening if there is nothing on the telly. She has some good photos, “look what I did in South Africa Mum”. In the afternoon, a boomslang was spotted in the trees by the shower block. These snakes are very venomous, but stick to the trees, so we were not at any great risk from it. Gave me some nice snaps though.
On the Wednesday afternoon, we went for a very exciting walk in the bush. We were going along nicely, when we heard the grunting and munching of a herd of buffalo. Our leader marshalled us together and we slowly and very carefully tiptoed on until we spotted them less than one hundred metres away. The wind was in our favour, so we headed away fro them through the bush to get to the waterhole before them. Here are some snaps from our stay in the hide. We were careful not to disturb them, not in case they ran away, but because they are cantankerous creatures that can
boomslang
sliding through the tree so quickly and gracefully get very nasty indeed, if you make them grumpy. Check out “Battle at Kruger” on You tube to see what I mean. It was quite exciting walking away from them and sneaking a peek over your shoulder to make sure they hadn’t spotted us.
No highlight on Sunday. Watched Ricky Hatton getting his block knocked off.
Had a good day at the hide on Monday. Went down to the hide and checked out the Impala fighting. It’s the rutting season now and the bush is full of the sounds of battle. If you didn’t know better you would swear you were surrounded by lions as these dainty little antelopes roar at each other in surprisingly deep voices. The pic is of a young ram taking his chances of pursuing a female while the big man is busy fighting. She ran in a big circle back to her brave, battling warrior. Also pix of warthog and various birds on this visit. New people had arrived when we got back, Cathy and Greg from the UK.
Rest of the week has been taken up by erosion control work and walks, all the dangerous stuff seems to have left the area, but we
bush at dusk
walking home before the lions come out to play still have lots of giraffe, warthog, waterbuck, zebra and impala to look at.
Today, Sunday, we went to see Jessica the hippo. She was swept away in floods from her mum when she was the tiniest of babies and was hand reared by a farming couple. She now weighs a ton and divides her time between her adopted parents and the herd of hippo further downstream. She comes and goes as she likes. She is quite a famous hippo with many appearences on the telly, including that series about the vets in Africa. Anyway, if one of your ambitions is to kiss a one ton hippo, this is the place to come.
After Jessica, the perfect afternoon in front of the telly. World Superbikes and City getting outclassed by United. See you next time.
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Jenny
non-member comment
Snogging a hippo??? whatever next?
Hi Uncle Ken, once again an exciting read. It is great to see a pic of you up close but have a wash? Oh its suntan is it??? ha ha! You are looking great and clearly enjoying every minute of your trip. I bet the hippo had terrible halitosis, hope you held your breath!! Thanks very much for Will's birthday present via Cathy :0) Don't know where the time has gone! Again, Stay safe Lots of love Jen, Glen and William xxx