The Safari Diaries (Part 1)

The Safari Diaries: Ngala Game Reserve (&Beyond)

Some of you may know that my wife Laura won a national photography competition on the UK through the Guardian newspaper last year. Her prize was a 5* safari for two in South Africa and the opportunity to write a photo essay for the paper which would be published. So thanks to my awesome wife, we went on an amazing safari with '&Beyond' at Ngala. Ngala (meaning Lion) is a private game reserve attached to the world famous Kruger National Park. There are no fences between the two so animals run freely between. 

Sunday 2nd September 2012

Laura and I flew from Jo’burg to Hoedspruit and were collected and driven to Ngala. The service and customer care that &Beyond pride themselves on was evident and demonstrated immediately by Elvert, our driver. The wildlife couldn’t wait for us either. On the way to the lodge we saw a group of elephants, giraffes and warthogs and we hadn’t even started yet.

We arrived and were greeted with fresh towels and a drink, were treated like VIPS and introduced to our butler Noel and our room – complete luxury. I enjoyed a sherry from the decanter and unpacked a little before meeting up with our safari ranger Robin, having ‘tea’ and heading straight out.

Drive 1

Of the ‘Big 5’ I had never seen leopard but this was satisfied 30 mins into our first drive, a female leopard was up a tree near to where she had put a kill in another tree. She was beautiful and we stayed transfixed for quite a while.

Ernest our tracker with Robin the Ranger 

We also saw the ubiquitous impala in several locations, a few elephants and our last ‘spot’ was an African Wildcat which looks very much like a domestic cat. Sightings of these are very rare indeed.

Monday 3rd September 2012

Drive 2

After a wake-up call of 5.30am our morning drive was due to start at 6.00am. At 5.50am however there was a rush of excitement in the lodge as one of the trackers told his large group to “get up, don’t finish your tea, there are Cheetahs –quick!” This meant of course that everyone was up, out and in their Land Rovers within a minute or so… except me however as I was on the toilet. A frantic knocking on our door told me all I needed to know and we were third group out – the maximum allowed for a sighting like this.

I hadn’t even thought about seeing cheetahs, I thought leopards would be difficult enough. So it was a rare privilege to see two males stalk through the bush.

The reverse photo taken by me 

Laura and I in the van in the background

Soon enough the cheetahs left Ngala which meant they could no longer be followed. We decided to go back and pay a visit to a group of buffalo, in fact a group of ‘grumpy old batchelor bulls’ that we had seen earlier.

The final excitement of the morning was the call that there were a pack of wild dogs resting in an area of the park. Like many of these animals, wild dogs are seldom seen so we rushed to the site to see 6 adults and 4 puppies resting by a tree.

We returned to the lodge absolutely buzzing. What an incredible morning we had enjoyed. Since Laura and I had got off the plane we had seen four of the ‘big five’ in less than 24 hours (and we had seen lions before in Uganda). Our guide Robin referred to the ‘magnificent seven’ – adding wild dogs and cheetahs to the big five. Little did we know the animals still had a few more tricks up their sleeves for us.

We had breakfast and then were straight out again on a community visit. &Beyond are partners with ‘The Africa Foundation’ who work with local communities. We visited a school, a newly built health centre and a craft shop which is run by local women. Having visited many schools in less developed regions, I was very impressed by the school buildings and toilet facilities but more so by the quality of teaching we observed. &Beyond have the opportunity to add real value as they have the benefits of wealthy customers who have been generous in their donations in the past.

Once we finally returned to camp, we fell asleep instantly and were lucky that we woke up in time for our next game drive later that day...

Part 2 - http://stephendcook.blogspot.co.uk/2012/10/the-safari-diaries-part-2.html

Check out Laura's pictures at

http://www.lauracookphotography.net/gallery.html?folio=Travel%20Wildlife%20Photography&gallery=Wildlife#/0 

Travelling Cape Town (Surrounding Areas) in Winter

Although a day trip to the Cape peninsula is easy from a base of Cape Town, we decided that we’d prefer to get a B&B in Simons Town, on the east (Indian Ocean) coast. This decision was also influenced by the fact that we had hired a car and so had the independence to do what we wanted. After Simons Town we had a road trip planned.    

This was the view from our room at Simons Town Guest House, an excellent B&B on the peninsula. http://www.simonstownguesthouse.co.za/
http://www.tripadvisor.co.uk/Hotel_Review-g319718-d1653148-Reviews-Simonstown_Guest_House-Simon_s_Town_Western_Cape.html

There are probably two main draws to the Cape Peninsula, visiting Cape Point (and the Cape of Good Hope) and visiting the penguins. 
Boulders Beach was our first destination by virtue of the fact it was 5 minutes down the road from our B & B. There are two entrances to see the penguins so make sure you hold onto your ticket to ensure you will not pay twice. The African Penguins are native to the area and Boulders Beach is now a conservation area.

At this point as we started to drive towards Cape Point and the national park our luck with the weather finally gave up and the rains came. It was to be expected though because a) it was winter b) this is the foot of Africa where the Atlantic & Indian oceans meet! 

There are plenty of things to see in the national park including bays and memorials but we decided to visit the main two, Cape Point and The Cape of Good Hope.

At Cape Point a funicular railway will take you to almost the top if you don’t fancy the walk. We didn’t fancy the walk.

Our next destination was the Cape of Good Hope, the point at which ships start to move eastward rather than southward. To our surprise we found wild ostriches in the area.

Our final day on the peninsula was spent driving a circular route along the west coast through Scarborough until we reached the east coast again. We stopped off at St James to take pics of the beach huts which reminded us of home in Southend-on-Sea (UK) 
    

From Cape Town we drove to the winelands and then onto Wilderness, Cintza, Port Elizabeth and onto Hoedspruit for our safari...

Travelling Cape Town (City) in Winter

There are a lot of positives when it comes to visiting places off-season as Laura and I discovered recently. If you are happy to accept the possibility of poorer than normal weather and shorter opening hours then almost everything else is an advantage including ease of getting accommodation and lack of crowds. However in the case of weather, it seems this is getting more and more difficult to predict as any tourists in the UK in June would have discovered. Day after day of rain fell in what is supposed to be a summer month.

We knew we would be visiting South Africa in winter and we had been closely monitoring the weather for the last week back in the UK before arriving. The week before had been the coldest that many people had ever remembered and they experienced snow for the first time in decades. Being situated on the Atlantic also means Cape Town's weather is very notoriously unpredictable. However, in our first 2 days we were greeted by clear blue skies, sunshine and unbelievably, temperatures in the mid 20’s celcius (70’s in farenheit).   



half room half view

Our first stop after flying in on Thursday was the Westin Hotel in central Cape Town which is attached to the International Convention Centre and very close to the V & A Waterfront development. Although it lacked 'character' like many chain hotels do, we couldn't fault it in any other way, breakfasts covered off any possible combination you would want to try, the pool/spa on the top floor was great, especially watching life go by through the enormous windows from the jacuzzi and service, impeccable.

After dumping our bags and seeing that the time was 4pm the clear skies and lack of cloud meant we had a window of opportunity to visit the top of Table Mountain, despite being pretty tired. I had previously visited Cape Town in 1999 and remember only having 1 day in 4 that was cloud free. This was an opportunity we couldn’t miss.

In the evening we visited Mitchell's Brewery in the V & A development and had some dinner. The Westin shuttle bus took care of getting there and back. Mitchell's Brewery is highly recommended.

We were blessed again by beautiful weather on the Friday which made our ride on the big red ‘hop on hop off’ tourist bus all the more enjoyable. Seasoned travellers may scoff at the notion of using one of these buses but they need to get over themselves – the buses deliver exactly what you want when you are new in a city without much time. Laura and I have used these buses in other cities including Istanbul and Milan.But first we enjoyed the V & A Waterfront and particularly the man made of crates. 

We actually started the day in the “Two Oceans” Aquarium which is well worth a visit. Strolling straight through with no queues was also very nice. 

Then it was onto the bus. Of the two routes we chose the blue route because it was more scenic and we had visited Table Mountain the night before. We disembarked at the Constantia wine area where we enjoyed a bit of wine tasting. Another stop off was Haut Bay, a picturesque fishing village.

Finally after finishing the bus tour we walked to an area of Cape Town called Bo Kaap which is home to the Malay community and is renowned for its colourful housing. We had missed the museum opening hours but we met some very kind locals and had dinner in one of the restaurants. If you wanted to visit Bo Kaap there are walking tours available. Best place to find more information is the museum. 
And that was our whistle stop Cape Town city trip.

Wine Tasting in Constantia