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!