On Sunday 17th October 2010 we travelled from Heathrow to Johannesburg
Took the evening BA flight to J'Burg. It was a good flight but I was ill again and offered oxygen this time! Managed about 1 hours sleep, which was a shame. The entertainment system was very poor, but the staff were excellent.
Landed early in J'Burg and were swiftly picked up by Federal Air. I love it when someone has my name on a board, AND they're right infront of me!
We then had a bit of a tedious wait for the light aircraft onto Sabi Sands. I say tedious because it was a long wait, but we had a free bar, free snacks and we sat outside in the gorgeous sun. There are definitely worse things to be doing on a Monday morning in October.
The light aircraft was another experience to notch up. About 12 passenger seats, all with window seats. Very bumpy, got buffeted around quite a bit, but quite exciting all the same. I sat by the emergency exit door, so extra pressure on me!
We were then welcomed by a wonderful group of rangers who knew us all by name and swiftly took us off from the Sabi Sands airstrip to Ulusaba.
It definitely lives up to it's reputation and it's brochure pictures. We had a quick round of introductions and a bit of a tour round. Instructions included extremely serious, and not to be broken rules about always needing an escort at night. Once it gets dark you're not allowed to walk anywhere on your own. My experience (it's now tuesday) tells me that the 'security'only have a damn big torch for protection, but hey, one extra person in your group reduces the odds of you being eaten I guess.
So, we were shown by yet another helpful member of staff who's name I can't remember, to our room. As part of the wedding package we were upgraded to a River Room. (We'd booked the cheapest room available and gone for more nights as the most practical way to spend (a serious amount of) our money. Anyway, the River Room is accessed by a rope bridge. Anyone who knows me knows I have a fear of bridges. The Severn crossing that you drive across is okay, the ones over streams that I walk across aren't, so it was pretty clear this one was going to fit in the latter category.
I'll post some pictures of the bridge, and the room later. The room is gorgeous, made of wood and thatch, 4 poster bed, own verandah, bath tub with views of animals wandering by. Complimentary mini bar, with gorgeous snacks, bottles of wine, beer etc, even half a bottle of champagne. No cans of Heinken and a tub of Pringles here!
Afternoon tea consists of iced tea or coffee, piping hot vegetable spring rolls and freshly made lemon sponge cake. All gorgeous. Then it was off for our first game drive. We're share a jeep with Julie, Mark and Callum, a family from Kent, and Phil, a southern african guy travelling on his own. Our guide is Greg (or Graham as Trev constantly calls him) and our tracker is Dan. Greg has only been working at Ulusaba for 2 weeks but his knowledge of the area are excellent but hey, we're here for 8 days so plenty of time to get lost.
On that very first drive we saw Giraffe, Impala, Waterbucks, Guinea Fowl and a few other deer like things that all look the same to me. Phill spotted the back end of a python slithering into an Ant hill, but the rest of us missed it.
As it was getting dark, and chillier we went off to a known kill sight of some lions. As we approached the site down a dusty track we saw what we all thought was a dead lion lying in the road. We know affectionately call him "carpet". He had gorged himself on so much buffalo he just lay down on the road and couldn't go any further. The stench was awful, I guess buffalo gives you wind!! As we neared the kill site we saw his two brothers still making their way through the buffalo. We could hear the bones crunching, and watched them tugging it between them, hanging on like they were starving but at the same time, being so full they couldn't hardly walk.
As we drove back to the road to take another look at "carpet" one of the brothers who'd been feeding game to join him. He looked as if he was going to flop down on the road and join his brother, but walked towards our land rover instead. He got within about 8 - 10 feet I reckon. Awesome site.
It's now 3pm on Tuesday and I need to get changed for afternoon tea and another game drive so I'll write some more soon....
Fantastic, am soooo envious - apart from the bridge as I don't like them either.. Great blog please keep it up... have fun and enjoy. Don't let carpet eat the camera! xx
Wow I am so please that you both are having such a fabulous time - it just sounds like the perfect place for your wedding - take care of yourselves and enjoy every minute xxxxx
Denny
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Fantastic, am soooo envious - apart from the bridge as I don't like them either.. Great blog please keep it up... have fun and enjoy. Don't let carpet eat the camera! xx