It's all claes and porridge...........

 

 

 

 

Yup, it is truly "all claes and porridge" now (a scottish saying used after you have spent all the money, and all you have left is some clothes and porridge) - exactly where we're at!!!!

Here's a run down of our last stop on our trip - Edinburgh, the home of great fiddling!!!

We left our tour friends Gary and Denise at Heathrow airport in London, they came back to Edmonton, and we went to Edinburgh to visit our friend Noreen, and Alistair Crighton, as well as daughters Mairi, and Katrina and her husband Bruce!

I've included pictures onf Edinburgh Castle, the home of my great-grandparents, where my grandfather (mom's father was born!) - a lovely big colonial house in Leith, and our friends the Crightons - daughter Maira in pink - at the door of their great Guest House Cluaran House!

Tom had had a cold at Mala Mala. but it was manageable, as he always gets one. By the time we got to Johanessburg airport to fly to LOndon I knew I was coming down with something. Thank gawd for the business lounge - I slept for 3 hours on 2 chairs pulled together!!

When we got to Scotland I felt really rugged. I also felt badly going into someones home sick, however the Crightons run a Guest House and travellers do come sick. Also, it is like my second hom, so if I couldn't be home when I am sick, that was the only other place I would want to be.

Did curtail our "outings" somewhat, but I was a trooper and slept some extra, then went out anyway - don't think it helped get better, but who can miss Edinburgh!!

This was the first time Tom had been to the Crightons - I had been on my own, when I got to know them, then they visited us last summer, so I was really excited to have Tom in my favorite city with me!!!

Did almost everything - Ali and Noreen took us on a great tour of the small towns and villages surrounding Edinburgh, which was great. Bought funky shoes (Edinburgers dress up very spiffy and have great shops!!).Crightons live in a high end district (not far from J.D. Rowlings house!!) and there is a "boutiquey" street called Morningside. This is where all the "Mornigside Ladies" shop - well-dressed, tweedy,gloves, hats - you get the look - but they are referred to as being "all lace curtains and nae knickers" or, as one cabby told me, whose mother WAS a Mornigside Lady, "all fur and nae knickers" - I love these Scottish sayings!!!

Tom did some great photography of the Scottish countryside and we PARTLY recovered from the long trip!!!

Next, on to the last long haul - LOndon to home. Really looking forward to home and feeling better (I lie, I am home and writing this).

Come back for my next post of what I/we learned from this huge vacation and other reflections on travel!

Huge thanks and hugz to friends Ron, Paula, Meg and Brenda, who commented on my posts as I went along - thanks tons!!! I KNOW you were all reading it(??), but it was great to get the comments and feel that the work was worth it!!!

Doing the Blog turned out to be MUCH MUCH MUCH more work than I anticipated!!! It actually became a chore, especially under the bad computer conditions that were always a problem. But I wanted to record the whole thing and have you share it.

At one point I seriously considered dropping it - it was often very stressful staying up too late to do it (especially al Mala Mala), but I carried on!!!!

For those who didn't comment, please tell me you read it when I talk to you (I will have a short quizz to see if you really did!!).

I may post some more of Tom's pix of Scotland. I am now back to my home desktop, and the pix are on our lap top, so once I have a minute I'll try to do that!!!

Got home Friday, Oct. 3 at supper, and slept all day Sat. and Sun - fell like I might get up today. Took getting home to get over my bug as well.

Poor Tom was off very early this morning to the dentist to get the tooth he broke on Zulu food fixed, and then he has to go into the office to meet the ending of the financial world!!!! Actually he went in Sat. to start his heart attack - not the best time to have been away.

The money is gone and the depression is on its way........it will help our diet!!! Actually we did amazingly well weighwise on the trip!! Tom gained 5 pounds and I gained 4!!!! I wouldn't eat 2 croissants in a year at home, and I was eating 2 EVERY DAY for breakfast along with lots of other fabulous stuff!!! Gives you some idea of how much we WALKED to keep the weight down to that amount!!!!!!

WE ARE DEFINITELY HOME FOR AWHILE - well, until Sat. when we go to Victoria, then March to Maui, April to Scottsdale Arizona for a conference, and May to Peurto Rico for a Tom "performance reward" conference!!! I can't even think of those - the thought of putting clothes in a suitcase makes me want to throw up!!!!!!!!!

Luv, N-J & Tommy!!!!

And One More Thing..........

To see all the animals that are posted, you will have to click on "older posts" at the end of the first set to see them all!!

Just realized this when I went back to take another look and didn't see the entire list.

There are a lot of pix, so please click on "older posts" and go back until you see all the beasties!!!

N-J!

P.S. VERY COOL!!!!

Just finished publishing the safari animals for you and had mentioned how I changed to large size for the pix, but had done many up first in medium size.

Went to the post to see if I could change that and couldn't, but found out that if you click on a picture you can enlarge it!!!!

So click away - you might want to use one for a screensaver or something!!! Had to let you know!!!

Night,night, N-J!!!!

The Big 5 & More!!!!

 

 

 

 

So this is really what it was all about - THE SAFARI!!!

Here they are in all their splendor! What amazing animals, and seeing them in their own habitat doing what they do naturally - having to kill other animals to survive, was incredible!!!

These guys are the fellows who got us there. Our ranger was Matt, the black fellow is Colbert, our tracker, a man who has lived his life with these animals - his father was a tracker. He sees things in the bushveld that are impossible to see to most people.

Colbert is married to one of the housekeepers at Mala Mala, a lovely girl by the name of Gertrude. They have 2 children, one 6 years and a baby 3 months old. All staff at Mala Mala work 7 days a week for 8 weeks and then get 2 weeks off. Colbert and his wife live in a village an hour outside of Mala Mala, where an aunt cares for their children, but even with being that close, they cannot leave to see these children until after the 8 weeks, and then have to return after the 2 week break - a hard thing to do!

Our ranger was Matt, 22, one year out of university studying wildlife and wildlife conservation and habitat - a course given only in African universities. He was raised on a game reserve that was owned by his father - knew a lot of the stuff he told us just growing up around these animals. It is a life not condusive to girlfriends/marriage and has a high burn-out rate. Once guys want to settle down they leave and work in a camp near a place to live, or teach.

This was a privileged way to see these beautiful animals - we were up close and personal at all times with them, as you can see.

We chose Rattray's Camp at Mala Mala because they do not allow children under 18 (in fact only adults were there) and they have a max. of 4 persons in the jeep for drives. We were unusually lucky, we only had one drive with another couple, and all the rest of the time we were only the 2 of us and Matt and Colbert - what a great opportunity!

We did our homework on this because Tom really wanted to make the most of his already great photographic skills (I'm saying this, he is too humble to!!) and most camps have up to 9 persons in a jeep and allow kids. Tom swore that if he had an obnoxious 9 year old in the jeep with him screaming just when he saw the perfect lion shot, he would throw the kid to the lion to get an even better shot - hence our decision for the exclusivity of Rattray's!!!

My first entry on this blog said that I would be the "bletherer" (writer and talker) and Tom would be the photographer. As most of you know, he is an incredible photographer, who even worked professionally at it when he was a student at university. It really shows here.

First we were really up close to the animals - always off road, over rough terrain and ducking through tough bushes and weeds,and driving down river banks and up sand hills I thought we would never get up. We did our first drive everyday from 6am - 9:30am and the second one each day from 3:30pm - 7:30pm and longer during both drives if we found something really unusual!!! It was exhausting, often very cold or very hot, dusty and often scary!

One such occasion was in the early morning when Matt found a pride of lions and was getting us really close to them. They were in a dry river bed, so he drove down the steep river side band - YIKES - then got into a gulley that had a small water hole with mud. He tried to rev through it but we got stuck - right up to the top of the Land Rover tire!!! He and Colbert got out, jacked up the jeep and were going to put the spare under the tire to get out - changed their minds, and Colbert, one huge, strong man, got out his huge machete, walked up the river sand and cut down a large tree!!! Trouble is, he told us we were out of radio range of the camp or another vehicle so he couldn't even call for help!

Now remember, somewhere very close, we are surrounded by a pride of lions! Colbert dragged the tree back to the jeep, and they procedded to cut it into a zillion pieces, made a mat of the pieces under the tire, and after an hour we got out! I did get a tad concerned and was glad I had a large bottle of water with me - better the lions should eat a hydrated woman!!!!

We had another occasion in the VERY DARK bushveld where we almost got stuck again, again with lions. It does happen when these guys are trying to get you as close as possible.

Mala Mala is unusual because it has been in existence for something like 38 years, so these animals that are there now have grown up with the land rovers around them all the time, and they don't even take notice of them - it's truly amazing. They take it as just another animal that has never attacked them, is not a predator or harmful in any way, so they have no fear of it getting close. You are told firmly NEVER to stand up because that changes the look of the "animal" they're used to and could frighten them - took them REAL seriously and never stood up.

While a few of these pix were taken by me on my great Fuji camera, the full credit for them goes to Tom, who took the vast majority of them. He had great equipment and an even greater eye and sense of what would look good. The animals provided the rest.

We hope you really enjoy these. I regret not printing them all here in large size - I had been doing all other photos med. size which was fine. Only part way through doing these did I change to large format, and it is much better - sorry for the smaller ones.

The blog isn't over, so do come back. I/we have other stuff and I plan to do a post-mortem on the trip. We both learned a lot from this experience - some things we would do in a heart beat again and some things we wouldn't!!!

For now I'll be glad to get home, get warm and get better. Tom and I have both been quite sick - the distace, the time zone adjustment, the exhaustion of the schedule, the great changes in temp from cold to 42 degrees all took a toll. I also think the malaria meds have been hard on our bodies.

We are in Edinburgh now visitng our friends and pubbing it and listening to some good fiddling while eating fish and chips. We fly home on Friday, Oct. 3 - hopefully the last long flight for awhile. Our wanderlust is over for awhile. It has also been very stressful for Tom to be away from his business with all of the financial disaster that is taking place!

Last, but certainly not least, many, many thanks to our dear friends Gary and Denise who agreed to put up with us for 3 weeks and show us their country. We had planned this together for over 1 year, and didn't make any mistakes in our planning - it was amazing!!!

They didn't kill us even though we were together everyday for 2 weeks, and Gary was the driver for the whole trip - don't know how he did it - and he never complained about how many pee breaks we girls wanted -thanks Gary!!!

They are now home in their own beds - they carried on home and we came to Scotland!

Come back please because the blog is not over - you've seen the best, but there is the rest!

Cheers, N-J and Tom!