Happy Birthday Sean

Today was pretty relaxing, we woke up for our 6am drive and started with a happy birthday song for Sean our guide! ( Im sure the animals didnt know what that sound was) then we headed out on a game drive  and because it was Sean’s birthday he sat on the tracker seat, so we were all hoping to have some close encounters just for him, but we didn’t really see much just elephants,zebras and impala. When we stopped for breakfast we gave Sean his birthday presents which was a cute little animal book, an ash tray, and a big piece of birthday cake aka “elephant dung”with 3 candles sticking out of it. When we got back to campus we were all excited to see how Sean would react to the mud wallow we made for him, and boy did he light up like a kid on Christmas day, he loved it! he couldn’t wait to throw off his clothes and dive right in. It didn’t take too long until he decided to get us in on the action as well, lol lets just say everyone was chased down and covered with mud, which happend to be  wet and cold but actually pretty comfortable and good for your skin. The tricky part will be washing it off that’s for sure! I dont think Hazel will be too impressed when we bring her our laundry for the week!

Today we went to the  Mica shooting range about an hour past Hoedspruit,which was pretty neat. We had an hour talk about rifle handling and safety and then went to a little area where we shot off our rifles. They didn’t give us the .458 or .375 to shoot because its pretty strong, but we slowly worked ourselves up with a .303 which was still pretty decent. Glad to say I got all the bullets he gave me into the target, which is better than I thought I was going to do. Then just as I thought we were done , the instructor puts us through a little drill which was quite embarrassing and intense. We had to drop down to our knees while he blew a whistle right into our ears over and over and over again while loading the bullet into the rifle , locking it, standing up and firing a small target, then we had to run to the other side and do the same thing with the instructor followed right behind  us blowing in our ears with the whistle. It was pretty intense but needed to be done to put us in a stressful and distracting situation, because when a lion for example charges we wont have time to ask the lion to slow down while we load the rifle, lol.

We started our driving school journey today at 8am. First off the driver of the school refused to come into the campus because he was afraid of the elephants among all the other dangerous animals, so we had to drive 2 vehicles out of the gate to meet him instead, which was quite funny. When we got to the other side of the fence which isn’t that much safer( lol) we met the instructor who I can only explain as a big black Santa clause, he was literally so happy and just laughed the whole time, just hearing him outbreak in laughter made you laugh. After greeting him we watched as  he went over to his tiny truck and   pulled   the cover off the bed, I asked myself “um? what is he doing” and just what I guessed he was making room for us!! I thought he was joking at first but that wasn’t the case, so we stuffed in the back like sausages and drove to what was explained to us as down the road, when in reality it  turned out to be a 30 min drive which  was cold and very windy but we survived . In fact, we were driving for what seemed so long that we started to come up with the idea that perhaps he was going to kidnap us since we were tourist and take our passports, so I took the opportunity to stuff my passport and wallet down my shirt just in case. When we arrived the instructor told us that South African driving was not that  different from driving in the states, which is not true mainly because  we don’t have elephant, ostrich, crocodile or kudu crossing signs, which he found to be quite hilarious. We  ended up sitting in a tiny room for 4 hours learning about the signs on the road and were asked hilarious questions to prepare us for the driving test like = If you see someone has been in a wreck and is injured do you a) help them b) call for help or c) drink some alcohol to get over the shock. Ha ha ,we were laughing the whole time in class rather than taking it serious, but what do you expect, we had to keep ourselves awake somehow. Apart from that we had the rest of the day off which was nice ,so I used the time to study for the rifle test this Friday, which just seems impossible to learn, but ill do my best.

Well I’m pleased to report that yesterday ended very well. As we were pulling back into the campus from our shopping trip into hoedspruit for more junk food to fill my study table, we realized that we could head into Kruger for 2 hours before the gate closed, so we threw our groceries into our rooms and hurried to the gate, we didn’t expect to see that much because there wasnt  alot of action at this time of the year towards the orpen gate of Kruger, so it was more of a pleasure drive. As we were 5 minutes into the gate we noticed a build up of cars blocking the road. For all who dont know a build up of more than 4 cars in the Kruger Park means there  is something good to see. So as we pulled up we asked one of the tourists in the cars what they were looking at and to our surprise they said cheetah!! #1) a cheetah is very hard and rare to spot on a drive and 2) we never expected a cheetah of all mammals to be so close to the gate so it was quite a surprise. We quickly tried to push our way through to get some good pictures since the cheetah was walking very slow and was alert and stalking ! We looked ahead on the left and saw a group of impala eating and completely unaware of her presence, so we quickly drove up ahead of everyone else because we figured she was going to go in for the kill and we wanted to have the best seat in the house. We drove ahead and waited and waited and waited for her to come around but the build up of cars ended up scaring her off deep into the bush , so unfortunately we did not get to witness our first chase and kill Today was a pretty interesting day and I literally felt like a man because we first went over rifle/weapon handling ( not gun) then we each had to change a flat tire on the land rover which is huge and very heavy by yourself. The Jack was about my height The rest of the flat tire practice consisted of  loosening the bolts making sure the tires were secure with bricks, ushering our guest to safety, taking off the tire putting it back onto the car which was near impossible , tightening the bolts back up again and slowly letting the jack back down! Man I have to say after today I am pretty tired and am ready to go to bed so goodnight to all!!

Gods Window

Well I am finally back from my safari expedition through Kruger and can I just say WOW. I didn’t realize how big and vast Kruger was. First off let me state that there is no wildlife north or south of Kruger, it all seems to be in the middle at this time of the year ,where our school is, which is great. Each of the camps we stayed at was pretty cool and each had its own charm. Sleeping in a tent wasn’t as bad as I thought, it’s just a hassle to pitch it up and take it down every day. One of the first days we were out we dint see anything at all and were so upset and bored not to mention running late and rushing towards the gate before we got fined. Just as we were flying by around 5pm (best viewing time) we ended up seeing the big five within 10 minutes!! It was unbelievable and of course only happened because we were in a big rush and didn’t have time to stop and view. Apart from that the trip was great. The highlight off the trip would have to be when we drove up upon a pride of lions feasting on a 2 day old giraffe carcass right next to the road, which was unbelievable both the sight and the overwhelming smell! The tourists all packed around the kill and were so annoying and pushy they even managed to honk their horns at each other which just drove me up the wall. One of the lionesses that were feeding was pretty beat up from the kill, she was limping pretty badly and was missing an eye probably from the chase, but I guess it’s worth the pain to get such a large ans sustainable meal for the rest of the pride and cubs. Another funny story was when we came up behind an older couple in a tiny car who were viewing a large bull elephant on the side of the road. We could tell that he was going to cross the road right in their path so we decided to stay and see what happens. The bull started to come up onto the road on a little game path, got in front of the car and refused to let them have the right away by chasing their car backwards until they got the message that this was his road. It was quite hilarious; to see such a large mammal shadowing such a little car and in spite of it all the woman in the front seat was filming the whole time, which was quite funny.

Harries Pancakes

The rest of the trip was great, yesterday we traveled through Graskop and tried some of the world famous pancakes which were very tasty. They deffinately put a whole new meaning behind a pancake, you could literally put anything you wanted to  into the pancake just like you were making an omelet. Graskop was my favorite destination by far; it was so beautiful and green. I felt like I was in Ireland and Austria at the same time, but it was fairly cold there. We got to lookout from Gods window which was a great view and some of the people in our group decided to jump off of a huge cliff called ” The Big Swing”, which I just couldn’t bring myself to do! Now we are back at campus and trying to rest before we start a new semester. This week is rifle handling so I am pretty excited to get my hands on some guns again!