Sailing around the World ( presently in Richards Bay , South Africa )
A Lady
Stephen Hyde
Sat 13 Nov 2010 07:01
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FRIDAY 12 th
NOVEMBER 2010
06.30hrs, Skipper heard noise in the Saloon, and
thought it was Terry having something to eat,
well thats what it sounded like, But,
BUT it was not Terry, Our neighbours later told us that they saw a
Monkey running off
the back of the boat with a bananna in one hand and
a bag of crisp's in the other, Well, did you ever !
cheeky little thing.
09.00hrs Skipper had a visit to the Doctor
again, to be told that he has osteoparisis in his right hip / joint. Gawd , what
next !
Of course , Skipper has now a heap of tablets he
can take to relive the pain,
11.00hrs S,A Terry and Collette piled into the car
and took off for the " Hluhluwe " game reserve This place was located up
north
by St. Lucia, except further inland, so it
took us about 1.5 hrs to get there..............
Sign posts are scarce , so it took us a bit of time
to find, but it was well worth the effort.
Once we paid our money and went inside the game
reserve, we were now driving on dirt tracks ( mind you, in good condition
)
The first things we saw were Rhino's, away in the
distance, and we were thrilled with ourselves,
These reserves are soooooo big, that many visitors
never see anything, and a lot depends on the weather and a bit of
luck.
Then we spotted a " Large spotted Genet"
about the size of a cat , but had a long tail standing vertical as it ran across
the grass.
A short time later, se saw a " Giraffe" , then two,
and then three, Wow ! this is getting good, and they were close to us as
well.
At this stage, we were low on fuel for both the car
and ourselves, so we drove to the " Hill top " hotel where we got petrol for thr
car
and then a light lunch for ourselves,
This place was located within the Reserve and
neatly designed to blend in with the landscape, ie, it had a low
profile
with a thatch roof, all very
pretty.
After the lunch, we drove south along and got real
lucky, The first thing we saw was a great big Elephant, standing quite close to
the track,
of course we had to stop and take lots of photo's
, click,click,
Then we saw a Lion, an Eland, ( type of deer
) more Rhino's and buffalo, and then Zebra's
It was great to see all these in their natural
surroundings and going about their buisness as usual.
These parks / game reserves are massive, about
24,000ha and was inhabited by local tribes as far back as 1,800 years
ago.
We were in awe of the whole schene, and really
enjoyed the day.
17.00hrs We left the reserve, and travelled
back towards Richards Bay to have dinner on the boat, Terry suggested having the
dinner
on the boat as it was their last night, they go
back home tomorrow.
Dinner consisted of a couple of roast chickens,
silver side beef, creamed potatoes , and carrots, plus plenty of
wine,
We had lot of visitors wishing " Bon Voyage " to
our guests......................
It was a late night in the cockpit. but we managed
to hit the scratchers eventually...
zzzzzzzzzzzZZZZZZZZZZZZzzzzzzzzzzzZZZZZZZZZZZzzzzzzzz
Thats all for today,
Signed :- Stephen Hyde (
Skipper )
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