Lions at Kruger

Us at Byron River Canyon. This was huge!

Water Buffalo at Kruger. Otherwise known as "Angry Judges"

North/East enterance to Kruger

A river bed in the dry.

Morning Safari

Kilmon our tracker - amazing ability to track animals! and a good laugh.

Skye with an Elephant in the background

In training

King of the jungle. Yep, it was his road.

Elephants playing in a mud bath. This was awesome!!

Elephant laughing

The cunning Cheetah. She walked right past the vehicle

Cheetah.....keep walking

Tenting in Kruger

We'll put some more pictures up shortly. Keep well.

Here they are.

Penguins on boulders beach

Waking though Soweto shanty town near Johannesburg

Pictures at the top of Table Mountain - Cape Town

Cape Point

Heart Bay

Winery tour

Cape Town service station

The big stuff:
- Seeing poverty live on one side of a fence and extreme wealth on the other has you struggling to define humanity and it’s greed.
- African culture is strong and is evident within each person and place we have visited. A real sense of pride and confidence omits from most people and places. There are exceptions obviously but there were more positives than negatives.

The small stuff
- Banana is a regular Pizza topping in South Africa
- A sundowner is a drink (any drink) consumed when the sun is going down. This often indicates the end of the working day and is enjoyed by many people.
- General customer service is fantastic. Canberra service industry, particularly the hospitality industry would learn a great deal from the South Africans.
- Taxis are expensive and drivers try to rip you off.
- South Africa is not as dangerous as people make it out to be.
- Some market stall owners lie through their teeth. We saw the same products in about 50 different market stalls around South Africa and Zambia. Each stall owner claimed they were the artist, creator or handyman that made it. The items were (in most cases) made in a factory and distributed across the country for sale.
- Zambia has a beer called Mosi – It’s great.
- South African wines are beautiful
- African rolling tobacco is not very nice
- You can have some of the tastiest food in the world in SA.

Our Stuff
- We found the black African people and communities to be full of soul, love and kindness.
- Observing the poverty in South Africa and Zambia makes you wonder why some people complain when a meal is cold or over cooked….get a grip!
- Americans can be great fun to travel with.
- After drinking 7 or 8 glasses of nice South African wine a headache is inevitable.
- After drinking 7 or 8 castle beers a headache is inevitable.

African picture summary remains copyright of the author Philby44, a member of the travel community Travellerspoint.

Comment on this entry | Tweet this | Your own free travel blog | More Travellerspoint blogs

Well what a totally awesome experience. The Safari has given us both a totally new respect and love for the African wild life.

We did Kruger National Park in three different vehicles a van, open minibus and open land cruser.

Big Stuff

• African animals in the wild are beautiful
  
• African trackers are genius!
  
• The African country side is diverse and beautiful

Small Stuff

• People from all backgrounds find the same beauty in the wild.
  
• An unknown bug poses a great threat to your personal health (even if it ends up being just a big christmas beatle)
  
• Looking into scrub land for hours without seeing anything can be quite relaxing.
  
• Safari guides enjoy a beer at the end of the day too!

Our Stuff

• Seeing African animals in the wild gave us a new respect for the beauty of nature.
  
• Watching elephant play in the mud, smiling and laughing was an emotional experience

African Safari remains copyright of the author Philby44, a member of the travel community Travellerspoint.

Comment on this entry | Tweet this | Your own free travel blog | More Travellerspoint blogs

We arrived in Johannesburg at about 4pm in the afternoon and was met by Cormak, the son of the Guest House owner. He took us for a short tour of Johannesburg which was awesome. It was nice to have an idea of where we were staying in reference to the city centre, trouble spots and safe spots. Thankfully we were staying in a safe area of town.

Here are a couple of pictures of the Guest House we stayed at.

On arrival to the Guest House we realised we were actually staying over the road from where Phil spent the first three years of his life. What a coincidence, needless to say, Phil was trying to sneek a peak of the front/back yards through the electric fences.

A very cultural dial in pizza, pasta and beer finished our day where in local time it was 9pm but body time was about 3am.

Throughout our blog posts we thought we would catagorise our experiences into three `Stuff`catagories:

Big Stuff - Major experiences, events, buildings, cultural observations etc.

Small Stuff - Smaller things that may otherwise not be mentioned in stories of travel, ie., the quality of service, the price of milk, the different beer/wine, the happy and sad people we meet or observe,

Our Stuff - The experiences, events and observations that have made a personal impression on us ie., experiencing third wourld living conditions, hearing a lion roar.

Cheers for now.

Phil & Skye

Picking up gold made just near Johannesburg

Nelson Mandella´s house in Johannesburg

The African adventure begins remains copyright of the author Philby44, a member of the travel community Travellerspoint.

Comment on this entry | Tweet this | Your own free travel blog | More Travellerspoint blogs

Welcome to our travel blog!

We'll be making entries where ever possible to keep you up to date with our adventure.

We are currently in Cape Town South Africa, getting ready to go to Germany and we havent managed to get our photo's downloaded ready to post yet. We'll do that as soon as possible.

In short we have been having an awesome time here in Africa, and as expected have fallen in love with the country. Stories and pictures will be up soon!!

We hope you are all well and feel free to post messages on this blog, we would love to hear from you.

Cheers for now,

Phil & Skye

Welcome to our travels remains copyright of the author Philby44, a member of the travel community Travellerspoint.

Comment on this entry | Tweet this | Your own free travel blog | More Travellerspoint blogs