Brighton: Saturday 27th December

Today we met up at 8am with Mike, Lou and Terry and went to Brighton for the day. Brighton was really pretty but freezy cold - it was 1 degree! We had fish and chips in Regency Square (in a cafe not on the beech as it was too cold). We walked abound the beach along the pier - where I brought fries and was swooped down on by a seagull who skidded accross the top of my chip container and took my chips with him! so checky! We saw a beautiful sunset before we left. A nice day.

Christmas Day & Boxing Day

Boxing Day Photos Steve, Rach, Juliet Rob, Josh, Sarah

Rach, Juliet, Sarah, Josh

Rach, Steve, Sarah, Maurice (came to lunch with us also)

Christmas Day Josh, Dave, Matt, Malcom

Josh and Mike

Today a group of us went to Lou and Terry's place and had roast dinner. It was a great day, except I managed to have the flu! I still had the flu on boxing day when we went out the Cheshunt to see Rach, Steve, Juliet, Rob, Helen, Rebecca and Joshua. We all went out to Christmas lunch then back to Rach and Steves for a chat and some gifts.

Weekend Before Christmas: Elton John

Since being back from holiday, we have both been very busy at work. This weekend we worked late on Friday night, then Saturday afternoon we went to Hyde Park to Winterwonderland (we went there last year also). We met Lou and Terry and had mulled wine and walked around the Christmas markets. On Sunday Josh and I went up to Manchester and stayed with Kate and Rex, really nice to see them again and had a wonderful lunch/dinner. Then we went to see Elton John perform at the M.E.N arena - it was amazing, the stage was great, he sounded excellent and we go to hear 'Candle in the Wind'! We stayed the night with Kate and Rex and headed back to London on the 7.20am train so Josh could go to work (the train only takes 2hrs). Josh is working whilst I write the blog and iron shirts! Christmas is only a few days away so, so looking foward to it. Merry Christmas.

Day 16: Saturday 6th December

Gerards Flat

Nelson Mandella Square

Having our hands watched at lunch time

We went for brunch (although it was midday) to an African themed place in a garden area by Joberg zoo – really pretty. Gerrard took us on a driving tour around the city, heaps of trees, garden areas and electric fenced houses with 10 foot high fences! We took a photo of Nelson Mandela square and walked around the mall. At 4pm we picked up our bags and headed back to the airport. Our overnight flight left at 8.10pm and saw us arrive back in London at 4.45am.

Return to London: Sunday 7th December

We arrived back at 4.45am and embarked on a rather long tube ride home, as the first tube left the airport at 6am, we arrived at Leicester square at 7am and had to wait 20minutes for the first train of the day! Very tiring, as we had to change trains again at Waterloo – not only did we arrive back exhausted, but it was freezing, -1! Welcome back to London! We had a fantastic time and South Africa was absolutely beautiful, the weather was gorgeous and the animals blew my mind! I look forward to going on another Safari one day.

Day 14: Thursday 4th December

snack time

Safari in the rain

Scorpian

Grysbok Leopard tortise

Dung beetle rolling dung

Hyena and the elephant carcus

We awoke again at 5am – boy does it feel early. Just as we where setting off on our drive it began to rain, we where given poncho’s to put on but got soaked anyway. Josh and I had rain on our glasses, made it quite difficult to see! Most of the animals where sheltering from the rain. We saw a hyena eating a dead elephant, it had been dead for a number of days (of natural causes) and the other animals had already eaten most of it, it was the Hyena and the vultures finishing it off. We saw a leopard tortoise and got a good picture of a steenbok and watch the mother and baby leopard walking for a while. We returned back early at 8am due to being totally soaked an enjoyed a nice shower before breakfast. Despite the rain it is still 26-29 degrees and the humidity is still high. We slept until just before lunch (2pm) and saw some baboons at the waterhole. At lunch we saw a baby brown spotted tree snake in the grass – very venomous! It had stopped raining and was nice and sunny for the drive in the afternoon. We saw a rare Sharps Grysbok and a heard of elephants got angry with us – flapping ears, snorting, throwing dust and was ready to charge – so scary! At night we saw another Jackal and because it was cooler we had the fan off whilst we slept and listened to the animal noises – hippo’s , baboons, cicadas (there are hundreds of these day and night) and a whole bunch of other noises we couldn’t even identity. Safari is amazing. We where again collected for dinner at 8apm and had few drinks then had Ostrich Carpaccio for starters, pork chop, mash, cauliflower, corn and chick pie for mains. While chocolate mousse for dessert. After dinner we was a non-poisonous scorpion and took a photo with the UV light shinning on it. This made it luminescent, as it has this coating on the outside to attract insects to it, just like how pollen attracts bees. If it stung a human it would burn but not be poisonous, it attacks it’s prey with its pincers.

Day 15: Friday 5th December

Josh and the ranger - check out the gun

During the night there was a thunder storm, the thunder was so loud and the lightening sheeted across the horizon. Along with it, came heavy rain, which meant we weren’t woken at 5am this morning and did not go on a game drive, as the rain didn’t stop until 9am. That meant yesterday was our last game drive, I was disappointed not to go out again, but we have seen all the animals we wanted to see. We had breakfast, and then checked out. Our transfer picked us up at 11.30am to take us to the airport, where we flew to Johannesburg for our final night in South Africa. On the way to the airport we saw a heard of buffalo, a heard of Zebra, a giraffe crossing the road, in front of the car, and we finally saw a wildebeest. We arrived in Joberg. and waited for fried we met in the UK (Gerrard) who lives here now, to finish work and meet us at the airport. We rented a car and drove back to his place. We went out to dinner at this complex that had all different restaurants/clubs/bars and a casino. It even had fake sky, night and day. We had dinner, went out to a club and tried our very limited hand at the casino. Returning home to bed at 4am.

Day 11: Monday 1st December

We started this morning looking at old school photos of Josh and Chris, including a dreadful fashion show they where in when they where at school – what a laugh! We went to Cavendish square and did a bit of shopping before playing 9 holes of golf. After golf we went for a drink at The River Club, a place that Josh used to go drinking when he was here. In the evening we went for diner with Chris and Gemma and met up afterwards with Jorn and Robbie for some pool. Thus ending Josh’s Cape Town Reunion.

Day 13: Wednesday 3rd December

Water Buffalo

Mangajan

Elephant outside our tent Elephants on Safari

Klaserie

Shobele

Klaserie

Adolescent male

We where woken at 5am, had a coffee and left for our game drive at 5.30am. We saw a male lion (Shobele), they are often on their own marking territory whilst the female and young lions hunt. His son was with him also, they tell us the lion is old an will die soon as 3 young males are banding together to fight him for his pride – sometime soon, due to his age and injuries he will loose. We saw a heard of buffalo (old males). We saw a breeding heard of elephants and some hippopotamus (they stay in the water all day and only come on land at night time, to feed. Everywhere you go, you see Waterbuk and Impala. During the drive at about 7.30am we stopped for coffee and a snack. We returned back to camp at 9am and had breakfast at 9.30 am. After breakfast we went on a busy walk, right out of camp we came facet to face with a huge male elephant and we had to walk in the other direction (no on foot animal encounters are safe). So off we headed and looked at cheetah, hyena, baboon, hippo and elephant tracks. We had a dung spitting contest – that is right we put kudu dung in our mouth and saw who could spit it the furthest. Josh and I had a nap for an hour and woke up in our tent to see that 2 rather large elephants where right outside the window. They where less than 1 meter from us with only a canvas wall in between – there is on other word except - amazing! We had lunch at 2.30pm then went on our next game drive at 4pm. On this drive we saw the father cheetah (Mangajan), he was sleeping and behind him was a heard of giraffe and zebra walking. We saw Warthogs, Stenbok and hippopotamus on land. We also saw another lone males lion (Klaserie), he was walking on the male lions territory that we saw yesterday. You can tell he is old because his bottom teeth are worn done. We looked for the female heard but they where on another reserve that we couldn’t’ go to. Again we returned to our room and where collected for dinner, tonight we had Kudu pie, chicken, pumpkin fritters and cauliflower for mains, chicken breast wrapped in bacon, for starters and pavlova for dessert. We had some drinks at the bar and went to bed at 11.30pm. Before dinner when we where having a drink at the bar, a scorpion ran past Josh’s toes! If he had been in the path of the scorpion we would be at the hospital now, as it was very poisonous, Josh would have 45 minutes to get to the doctor before he died, and if someone happens to be allergic (you don’t’ find this out until you are bitten) you have only 10 minutes! I think the insects are the most dangerous things here!