Author: Peter

Island Adventure Day 2

Posted on by Peter

We left for Heathrow airport at 7am this morning for our flight to Bahamas. We did a little duty free shopping for Helen and then had breakfast in the lounge. By that stage it was almost time to board. On the way to the gate we met Paul & Tina and then bumped into two other actuarial people all on the same flight. We left right on time and the pilot told us that the flying time was 9 hours 15 minutes. All those hours during daylight hours. Nothing to do but watch a movie (or in Helen’s case two), read a book (I managed to finish mine), listen to some music, have a short sleep (I managed an hour Helen got about 2 hours in) and eat. I watched the new batman movie (which was worth watching for those of you who haven’t seen it yet) while they served us lunch. Helen was disgusted that they served lunch at 11:30am. I was hungry and didn’t care.  Just before we landed they served afternoon tea of sandwiches and scones. Very good scones actually (for all those that saw and commented on Helen’s Facebook status yesterday!).

You can get snacks during the flight as well. They have chips and chocolates and other healthy options like fruit and yogurt. But after seeing Paul walking back and forward with a fistful of chocolates I thought I better get some before they were all gone. I basically got the last ones for Helen and I to share. I reckon Paul ate all the rest.

We landed about 45 minutes early. Coming in to land you can see the azure blue sea around the island. It was quite beautiful and I kick myself for not taking any photos. The airport is a relatively small and was pretty deserted except for our flight. It must be smaller than Cape Town airport even. Passport control was straightforward, luggage came off about 10th and we found our transfer to the hotel. We were with all the other actuarial people on the plane. 7 South African’s on the plane. The ride to the hotel was only about 10 minutes.

We are staying at the Sheraton Nassau (www.sheraton.com/NassauBeach). It is a massive hotel. We have an ocean facing room (also overlooks the pool). The photo is from our room balcony. It is about 75 degrees F (not sure what that is in degrees C right now – mid twenties I would guess). It is quite humid though so it feels hotter even though there is a quite a strong breeze blowing. After we did the essential and got the internet working, we went for a walk on the beach and tried out the various pool options.

We met Paul & Tina and Cisca (Actuarial Society of SA employee) for dinner at 6pm. We all decided to eat in the hotel as we were all quite tired. We just went to the Italian restaurant in the hotel. Everything is quite pricey here. Helen and I bought 2 cooldrinks and a packet of crisps and paid $14 for that (i.e. R100). Dinner cost us over $50 for very simple options – 1 course only and I had a local beer (quite nice). I can already see that this is an expensive place to eat and drink.

It is now 8pm and Helen is already asleep. I am fighting the tiredness and trying to keep going to at least 9:30pm. Anything earlier and I know I will be awake in the early hours of the morning and I want to avoid that. Fortunately tomorrow am is free as my first meeting is at 2pm tomorrow. My first impressions of Nassau:
1. It is a mix of America & British cultures
2. The houses look American
3. You have to listen very carefully when the locals speak (I sometimes wonder if they are even speaking English)
4. It can get very hot & humid here
5. There isn’t much to see except the beach
6. It’s going to be expensive

Until tomorrow …

Island Adventure Day 1

Posted on by Peter

Some people are confused because they have seen Helen’s Facebook status and wondered why we are in London today when we are meant to be going to the Bahama’s.  Don’t worry, the plane was delayed and nor has the Bahama’s been hit by another Hurricane.  We planned it this way. To get to the Bahama’s from Cape Town is a real schlep.  You can either fly to Jhb then to Atlanta then to Miami and then to Nassau (which takes about a week and you have to be harassed by American passport control) or you can fly to London and then to Nassau.  We opted for the latter option. Not only was it cheaper and more convenient but it also meant I could spend the day at work and Helen could do what she loves most in London – shop.

So we took the overnight flight to London. I do this a lot (as you probably know). But traveling with Helen is another experience. Firstly she does not watch any movies. Who squanders the chance to not to watch a movie on a plane? And then she sleeps until we are about to land and I had to actually wake her up. She said she didn’t sleep that well (her standards are obviously much higher than mine) and that some strange man tried to steel her blanket in the middle of the night (sounded very suspicious to me). Given she has recently been waking up in the middle of the night and ask me “Who’s winning” while I am watching the SA vs Oz test match, I am struggling to buy the man stealing her blanky story.

We landed early mainly because a passenger had taken ill.  Immediately they announced it I said to Helen that means no doing circles in the sky over London and I was spot on. Straight in to land and even though we had to wait for paramedics to board the plane first we were through and waiting for our luggage in about 20 minutes. And 40 minutes later we were still waiting. What seemed really strange was that no one else was waiting and there were no longer any bags on the carousel. Now people ask me why I only travel with hand luggage. This morning was a demonstration of why I do that. If I had to wait 40 minutes for baggage every trip I made I would consume around 32 hours every year (or 1.33 days) waiting for luggage.  Not a good use of time. And the first time I check luggage in months and the thing doesn’t arrive. Fortunately after visiting the complaints counter they found it and we were reunited with our bag.

Not a great start to the day. Of course as we arrived to take the Heathrow Express the train closed doors and pulled out of the station. 30 seconds earlier and we would have been on that one. Clearly a morning of having my patience tested. What can you do, just breathe in and out and life goes on.  I went to work but Helen was in such a rush to get to the shops she left before me. And from the looks of the packets and the extra packing I had to do this evening it seems she made the most of it. Pleasingly for me she did actually buy me some clothes too so I am not going to complain at all.

This evening we had a client dinner at the Corinthian Hotel. When we arrived there were lots of young teenage girls at the entrance. Clearly they had heard I was coming to dinner there and were seeking my autograph (happens to me regularly). I was disappointed to learn that actually the X-Factor participants were staying there. Fortunately we were asked to go behind the yellow tape. Must have been the fact I was wearing a suit that they let us in so quickly. We had a ‘Chef’s Table’.  This means that we get to see them cook right in front of us. Food was quite good, company was entertaining and overall a lovely evening. Helen is already asleep and I am going to join her very shortly. Tomorrow we fly to Nassau and we need to get up early for our pickup.

Next post tomorrow will be from the Bahamas!

 

Brussels – Last Take

Posted on by Peter

This morning the conference started at 9am with a motivational type speaker (Roy Sheppard). He did a session on how to make people like you; how to be the life of the party.  Better described would be ‘How to take an introverted, boring actuary and become an interesting person’. Quite a challenge in 60 minutes. I think he failed. Some people liked him. I lost interest after 20 minutes and did my emails instead. Paul would have lost interest after 10 minutes, Marcus after 5 minutes.  That session was followed by two workshop sessions. The first one was on Stem Cells which was quite interesting especially since Mom has experienced the benefits of it. The amazing thing is that they none have 4 human trials running (in clinic trials is the medical term) for Stem Cell drugs. Most of them are focussed around diabetes and if they are successful it could wipe out diabetes as a disease.  That would have a phenomenal affect on mortality of humans and better living for many millions of diabetes sufferers.  The other session I attended was false advertising. The session sounded interesting on the programme but it was terribly boring and eventually 3 of us gave up and left. It was so technical only Louis (our Gen Re guru actuary) would have understood what was going on.

After lunch we left for the airport by taxi. My second taxi experience was pretty similar to the first one. This guy looked like a Serbian drug dealer and I reckon he was trying to flee the police when he picked us up. He used two lanes through the tunnel he was driving so fast. I had visions of the paparazzi chasing us in the tunnel and dying in a mangled wreck of Mercedes taxi (oh no, wait that was what happened to Diana and Dodi not a nobody like me).

The airport was again very spooky. When we entered the first bank of check in desks were totally deserted. What is it with Brussels? Does no one use the airport? We were the only people at passport control, the only people in the duty free shop (when in Belgium at least buy chocolates … all my favourite people are getting so you’ll have to wait and see if you make that list), the only people going through security.  I know you don’t believe me so I took a photo of the airport to prove it.  And in case you think that is a person at the very end, it isn’t.  It really is the weirdest feeling being in a airport like that. It is a ghost airport.

I am now back in civilization at Heathrow airport. I am flying back to Johannesburg tonight, in Johannesburg for business for the day and then back to CT.  I will be back posting again next week when Helen and I head to Nassau. Watch this space.

 

Brussels – Take 3

Posted on by Peter

Last night we had the gala dinner. These affairs are generally rather dull so the organisers had some wandering magicians to entertain us.  The one guy came to our table and did a card trick and as hard as you try to see what he is doing you can’t. 10 people at the table all watching him and not one of us saw how he did it. The most impressive thing he did was ask one of the people at the table to hold the pack of cards. Then he told us he was in fact an illusionist and really he fools us into seeing whatever he wants us to see and that she isn’t really holding a pack of cards at all. She immediately opened her hand to protest and show him and (of course) she was holding a perspex block instead. How he managed to do that in front of us all is ridiculous. And it wasn’t even the end of the evening when we could have explained it away due to the alcohol drunk at the table.

The dinner was pretty ordinary. I guess it is pretty hard to cater for 900 people (having never done it myself yet). But what surprised me is that they served Quail as he main course. It is surprising because where do you find 900 quail to serve at a dinner? And how much more must that cost than chicken? And why would you serve it anyway as it has the smallest drumsticks and thighs I have ever seen or eaten? And how many people would have been offended to eat it? I have concluded that the Belgians are a little crazy actually.

As you can see I did manage to overcome my software issues overnight so I could add a few photos of Brussels and the conference centre. The conference centre is the one on the right. Looks impressive but once inside isn’t. The other photo is of the old city centre and where my hotel is located.

The one thing I can compliment the Belgians on is their breakfasts. The waffles were ok at breakfast but the pancakes are simply superb. I am a pretty good pancake maker (I am good at most things of course) but things are much better than anything else I have eaten. I was trying to see how I could sneak a few into my pockets to bring back home. And the raisin loaf … well that I could write a whole blog post on by itself. I am a bit of a raisin loaf connoisseur and again these guys know how to make raisin loaf.

I have to get off to the conference now. It finishes today and I have to leave before the closing session in order to catch my flight back to London in time. If anything interesting happens I might post again from the airport tonight. Otherwise you will hear from me again next week as Helen and I are going on a hardship business trip to Nassau, Bahama’s (fortunately Hurricane Sandy is now long gone).

And thanks to the one additional Twitter follower … you know who you are!

 

Brussels – Take 2

Posted on by Peter

Now that I have spent a full day in Brussels I feel adequately informed enough to express some views on Brussels. Excuse me for not doing that yesterday.

The conference officially started last night.  It is only a 5 minute walk from the hotel. The ladies were complaining about the cobbled streets and high heels. Wasn’t an issue for me though. Crossing the road was especially when I thought it was a one-way road and only looked the one direction before crossing. Fortunately wasn’t a problem because clearly Brussels must be a very unsafe city at night because there was only one car driving on the road and it came from the direction I was looking in. (This morning they were about 10 cars during the rush hour so I had to remember to look both ways.)  Still wandering where all the people are in Brussels. At lunch time today I went back to my hotel to do some emails/phone calls and 2/3rds of the shops were closed. In fact I have yet to see a shop open except the Belgium Beer shop next to the hotel (we would call that a bottle store in SA).

The start of the conference was quite good except that there was no where to sit for dinner.  They had tables out but those could only accommodate about a third of the people present.  The key note speaker was a journalist (Paul Mason) and I was surprised at how nervous he was for someone who is on television regularly. He stuttered and stammered his way through the talk. Good content though. For those technologically advanced people reading the blog, I am now on Twitter and so if you want to follow the exciting developments at the conference then you can follow me.  My Twitter name is @ptactuary (go on Marcus I know you will).

After the keynote there was a ‘Taste of Belgium’ which was actually a chocolate fountain which you could dip cheese under. And Belgium beer on tap. I was tired after having been woken up for breakfast at 4:30am on the plane so I went to bed.

The Belgians know how to do breakfast though. Pancakes and Waffles for breakfast.  What more could you ask for?! My kids would have loved it.  I did. Definitely having those again tomorrow.

Full day conference today. Paul will be proud of me as I only missed one session and that was on Solvency II (and who really cares as that is now postponed until 2016). If you don’t know what that is, don’t worry, it isn’t important unless you’re an actuary and then I consider it unimportant anyway. The sessions have been very good in general except one of our competitors marketed themselves in their presentation which I thought was very poor taste for an industry conference. I also spoke today so that is out of the way.  Good turnout for my session (more people attended than had signed up) and seemed to get a good response (sorry you weren’t there Jules I don’t think I did justice to your slides).

Belgians are clearly not good engineers or planners though.  The conference centre is the worst I have ever been two. The venues are miles apart (no really miles is correct). It can take you at least 15 minutes to walk from the one venue to the next. Worse than walking between lectures at UCT. And only 1 escalator between floors. Ever seen 1 escalator and 1000 people trying to go up simultaneously. You would have thought that by now they would have figured out how poorly laid out the conference centre is. And then to get to the upper floors (because the exhibition hall is on floor -1 and the other venues are on floor 3 or 4) you have to walk up stairs.  No escalator. There are some lifts but they are so small they can take about 4 people at once and there are only 3 of them. Similar logistics problems at lunch today when the queue for lunch was about 100 people long.  Fortunately I got there early so I managed to finish eating before most people even had their food.  You would swear that they would have figured that out already.

Weather was overcast and raining most of the day. Still around 7-10 degrees C. Gala dinner upcoming. Go to go and put my suit on.

PS: Was trying to add some photos but couldn’t because of software upgrade issues. Will try to again tomorrow.

Brussels

Posted on by Peter

I never planned to blog this trip but there is so much to say that I thought I would anyway.  I am in Brussels for a few days for a conference (another exciting actuarial one). I usually don’t blog my business trips as they tend to be to London and back and I now consider London my second home. But a trip to Brussels is a little unique.  I am actually here for the UK Life Conference. Go figure – a UK conference held in Brussels. Probably especially arranged for the Euro skeptics. I believe the real reason is that it is much cheaper to host here than in the UK. I guess that says something about the attractiveness of Brussels.

I flew over from CT last night and I got a major fright when the guy facing me (business class seats  on BA alternate front and back so the passenger next to you looks directly at you) introduced himself by name to me. I was so stunned that my first thought was I know the guy but once I got over that thought (I didn’t), I realised he was expecting my name in return. Didn’t he know that I don’t want to speak to a stranger for the next 12 hours? I want to eat dinner, watch my movie and go to sleep. Fortunately there is a screen between the seats and I purposed to ensure it went up immediately I could do it. That did cut him off from talking to me the whole night (fortunately). For those of you who think I am anti-social, I promise to leave it down during my next trip and also to talk to the person looking at me.

I transferred through Heathrow airport to Brussels which was relatively painless as these things go. As we got onto the flight to Brussels a mother with 2 youngish (younger than Chloe) children realised that the one daughter had left her backpack in the terminal. Snot and trane (sorry foreigners – use Google translator if you need to). Fortunately the cabin crew went back and found it for her. Then the lady sitting next to me gets on and starts rummaging through her bag in desperation. The more she rummaged, the more desperate she became. I thought she must have lost her cellphone, passport or something like that. But no.  She finds it and a big sigh of relief she pulls out a box of snacks to eat and promptly starts nibbling away. Then out comes a shoe box (yes out of same bag) and I am thinking what now? She opens it up with a flourish and inside is her knitting.  A kid walks past and loudly points it out to his parents that there is ‘a weird woman knitting out of a shoebox’. My thought exactly but I just didn’t articulate it well (or not at all). Then she suddenly curls herself up on the seat and goes to sleep and snores most of the way to Brussels.  It takes all types to make the World go around (in fact it doesn’t). In case you were wondering she wasn’t old (read into old whatever suits you).

Landed in Brussels to what the captain described a ‘lovely day’. By that he clearly meant 7 degrees C outside with low level cloud but not raining yet (because it did rain about an hour later).  The airport looks like it is just being built. When you exit into the terminal building it seems as if the place is deserted. Not a sign of a person until you hit passport control (and that took about 15 minutes to walk to that).  Had my first run in with a Belgian official at customs. I exited through EU channel (because I came from London).  Only to be stopped and told that since I actually came from Cape Town I had to go through the other channel. This resulted in me walking backwards to where I started, selecting the channel right next to the one I had just walked through and then walking right past the officious lady and through the exit. What was the point of that? Probably an EU regulation and seeing as Brussels is the seat of power they had to enforce it.

When I exited I found all the other people in Brussels outside the terminal that were missing from inside it. And then I wondered whether I had in fact arrived in Brussels because it could have been Mecca actually given the demographics of the people in front of me in their thousands (yes I am not exaggerating). Then I remembered seeing an Ethiad plane and realised that these people were indeed meeting the Pilgrim’s on their return.  That and the fact that I saw a bar selling Stella Artois jolted me back into believing I was indeed in Brussels.

I took a taxi becuase trying to work out which train to take when everything is in 4 languages just seemed like too much hard work for a Sunday. The people in front of me didn’t want to take the driver that was first in line. I thought they preferred the Mercedes Taxi to the VW he was driving. I took him and off we sped. Then I realised that they were probably locals and this guys reputation proceeded him. Before we left the airport road system he was driving at 110 km/h and I swear the sign I saw said 60 km/h. We had to use all 3 lanes on one bend. Was the Formula 1 Grand Prix in Brussels? Had I gotten on board with a retired Thierry Boutsen (if you’re old enough to know who he is)? After 4 times peeling my face off the front seat (at least his breaks worked) and twice off the side window (due to G-force on the cornering), we made it to the hotel ‘Royal Windsor Hotel’.

I attempted to check in only to be told that check in was 2pm. I wanted to ‘freshen up’ as the ladies would say (by that I mean change my shirt and put on some deodorant). I asked if there was no way I could get the room before 2pm and she said no. I said not even 1 minute to 2pm and she smiled and said no. Probably another EU regulation. I went to have some lunch in the bar instead. As I was in Brussels I thought I better go for the Mussels only to be told that they had run out. What? In Brussels, run out of Mussels? (There’s a limerick in there somewhere). Finished lunch at 1:50pm and thought I would try my luck and see if I could get a room and incredibly even though EU regulations say check-in time is 2pm I got my room at 1:50pm. Someone from the UK probably has to pay a fine now (no one else ever pays fines in the EU).

The hotel is meant to be 5-star (http://www.royalwindsorbrussels.com/).  I think to get 5-stars in Europe it is just based on having a large fluffy towel in the bathroom and a bathrobe behind the door. The guys who do these hotel websites need serious commendation. How to do take a room that is 3m x 3m (yes I measured) and make it look big? I took a few minutes to find the TV because that was even tucked away in the corner cupboard. And the bed is so soft I can feel the floor through it. The plumbing has not been re-done since the war (first WW that is). The pressure is so poor that a shower is useless unless you’re into trickling water over your body. The bath took 20 minutes to fill. Probably another EU regulation about water pressure in hotel rooms.

All this to write and the conference hasn’t even started yet.  Sorry there aren’t any photos. I was scared I might breach an EU regulation.  I haven’t been to Brussels for about 26 years. Now I remember why I haven’t rushed back.

Kruger Park – Day 6

Posted on by Peter

Today is a bit of a shock to the system. We are back in CT but the temperature on landing was 12 degrees versus the 36 degrees when we left. There is synergy in there somewhere but just not sure what it is.

We left this morning at 6am as we had to drive from Letaba out of the Park and then down to the Kruger International Airport. The GPS said it would take 4.5 hours but I know what the roads and traffic are like so we gave ourselves a little more time. We didn’t see much on the road out of the Park (we exited at the Phalaborwa gate). However after driving for an hour Chloe exclaimed that she had left her cellphone under the pillow of the bed! Heart sinking moment. Quick decision needed as well – turn back and risk missing the flight or carry straight on and hope we could get it back some other way. Initially I did a U-turn to head back but Michael & Helen pointed out that adding 2 hours to the journey would mean we would risk missing the flight. So another U-turn and back on the original route.

Helen managed to find the Letaba Camp number and as we had cellphone signal we called them. They put her through to lost property who said they would check and we should call again in an hour. That was just after we exited the park and Helen called back and they said they had found the cellphone and would return it to us.  The logistics of how we get it back still need to be sorted out but at least we can get it back (it is not a cheap one so definitely worth getting it back). We were REALLY impressed with the staff at KNP and how they handled this. It is SO pleasing to get service like this and for the honesty of the cleaning staff to return it to us as well. If only more South African’s didn’t conduct themselves like that.

We did stop at Hoedspruit for a quick Wimpy breakfast.  Fortunately they have re-tarred most of the road now from Phalaborwa to White River. No more swallow-your-car potholes. There are still the usual hazards of pedestrians and cows though. At one stage we had to stop in a 120 km/h zone as a few cows we just standing in the road. It didn’t seem like they were going anywhere until a truck hooted (honked for the Americans) and drove right at them and that did the trick. Helen said “Only in Africa”.  We also did see another “Only in Africa” thing – the Mpumulanga Premier racing past with police escort, flashing lights etc. He has a bigger escort than the Prime Minister of the UK has. I wonder how much is necessity and how much is ego?!

We got to the airport about 2 hours ahead of our flight. It would have made it VERY tight if we had turned around to retrieve Chloe’s phone so it was probably the right decision to leave it and hope that we get it back via post. The flight was uneventful. We are back to the reality of daily life again. Our thoughts will drift back to the bush, animals, birds and hot weather. Africa is in our blood – all of us agree.

PS: Next trip … Bahama’s business trip. Helen coming along for the pleasure. Upcoming in November.

 

Kruger Park – Day 5

Posted on by Peter

I was wrong about yesterday. It wasn’t at all hot. Quite a mild day actually. Especially if you consider it was 39 degrees today at 4:20pm! Not kidding. Michael and I went out for an early morning drive this morning (everyone else was too lazy and slept in) when we left at 6am it was 11.5 degrees. By the time we returned at 7:15am it was 23.5 degrees. Now I studied geography and science at school and I am still puzzled how it can be possible that the temperature can rise that quickly in an hour and a quarter. Surely that is not possible?! By the time we were on the road heading south it was 27 degrees (at 8am) and it hit 30 degrees at 9am.

We had a drive from Bateleur down to Letaba for our last night stop before heading home tomorrow. It was about a 110 km drive. First 20 km on gravel to the main road. Would be ideally suited to allow someone like Michael to drive if he had a license.  As it was already very hot the game life was sparse and really only around the waterholes. There was quite a lot of game around the waterholes though including Elephant, Buffalo, Zebra, Impala & Warthog. We did add Tssebee to our trip list as well today (also seen at a waterhole). And after all the drives today we are at 105 birds for the trip and we still haven’t seen some common ones we ought to have seen (like sunbirds). It isn’t that we haven’t seen a variety of bird life, we have, the problem has been that as soon as it gets too hot you see nothing as everything is sheltering from the sun.

We did have one highlight from today and that was just outside Mopani camp. About a km outside of the camp we saw a number of cars parked. Sure sign of something big going on. As we got closer we saw a dead Impala but nothing else. After asking a grumpy continental European, it turned out that a cheetah had killed it 4 hours earlier (at 6:15am) but then had been frightened off by the cars and had not been seen again.  We searched for a while and didn’t see anything so headed into Mopani Camp for a pitstop and ice creams. After we were finished we went back to see if anything was happening and sure enough in the 15 minutes we had been away the cheetah and come and taken the impala and now we couldn’t see either. We drove up and down, reversed a few times and finally Helen spotted the cheetah under/behind a tree & bush eating. We all got to see her/him (not sure which but I will call it a she) and then she lay down not to be see again. I remember reading/hearing that when a cheetah kills she is so tired that she can’t eat for some time afterwards and that is probably what happened.  She was exhausted for 4 hours and then finally got her strength back to start eating. It did make a good highlight for the day.

We got to Letaba just after midday and fortunately we could get our rondavels immediately as we needed to be indoors with the aircon on! That wasn’t even enough for the boys who decided the freezer was the only way to resolve their heat problem! We have two rondavels (one 2 bed and one 3 bed). The boys are in the 2 bed and a reasonable distance away from us. The joys of having teenagers – they don’t care at all that we aren’t close by anymore. We did have supper together which was slightly challenging as there were only 4 chairs, a small table and 4 knives/forks but we still managed to make it work. And we were able to compare our fire with everyone else’s and of course ours was the best (though some guy did have an impressive bonfire happening!). As we had run out of foil we pretty much ate meat for supper but as it was so hot no one seemed to care.

As we have to be up early tomorrow to ensure we get back for our flight in time we are all in bed already. Until tomorrow (and the last blog for this trip).

PS: @Sharon – Stephen says he wasn’t looking at the cleavage. Not sure what he was looking at but I suggest you or Lara ask him when we get back.

Kruger Park – Day 4

Posted on by Peter

Today could only be described using one of my father-in-laws choice words – Bl..s.m HOT.  By 8am it was 25 degrees and by 11am it was 30 degrees. We went out for a drive at 4pm and it was 36 degrees. Even now at 10pm it must still be 25 degrees outside. The boys and I went for an early morning drive to the two dams. I think they came to humor me or in the hope that they might get to drive (which I would never allow of course). The one dam was completely dry and so we went back to the other dam. Incredibly it was 13 degrees when we left (at 5:45am). We had to let ourselves out of the camp as the gate was closed still with no one to be seen. We didn’t see much new – 2 new birds for the trip (one a vulture) but otherwise everything else we had already seen.

It is incredibly dry up here. Have a look at our the cover photo of the blog and you will see what I mean. Dusty and dry. And so the game tends only to be seen at the water. We went to Shingwedzi today but even the river there was empty. There is also a dam there called Kanniedood – well I am afraid to say it was dood. I have never seen it so dry. The ranger here at Bateleur said it hasn’t rained for a very long time. I think a very long time must be at least 6 months given how little water there is.

The drive to Shingwedzi and back is about an hour and half and we needed bread for lunch (Helen managed to burn 4 pieces in a row yesterday in the toaster so we needed to replenish that). Nothing like a 3 hour round trip to buy some bread. We also were cellphone signal starved and so everyone was quickly downloading emails when we got there as well. As the majority of the way is on gravel road it would have been the perfect time for the boys to practice their driving skills of a manual car (though I would never allow that of course). If I had, I would have let Michael drive there and Stephen back. Certainly no game to see and hardly any cars so it would never have been an issue but as you all know I am very law abiding.

The only thing you could do this afternoon was lie on the bed and watch the ceiling fan go round and round. Or in my case listen to the ceiling fan go round and round. We did go out late afternoon though it seemed that we were the only idiots to do that. The dam did have the same wildlife we had seen previously. Nothing new. A pair of fish eagles doing some fishing; hippo’s frolicking and lots of ducks; geese; storks; herons etc all feeding.

We have enjoyed the exclusive and quiet nature of the bush camp and will definitely try to stay at them again in future. Only having 7 huts does make it seem exclusive even though you pay exactly the same for this as other camps. The only downside is that it is very dry and hardly any game to be seen but that is hardly a fault of the camp. The open WiFi connection makes up for it. The ranger must wonder why I kept having around the reception area pretending to read those boring wildlife posters. He even asked me at one stage if I got a signal on my cell as he heard it beep from a downloaded email. I told him we didn’t have any signal. He did seem puzzled that I was managing to get emails though. Fortunately he has not figured it out.

Sorry about the lack of photos – will try tomorrow when we are at the next (and last camp). Until then …

Kruger Park – Day 3

Posted on by Peter

This morning was a repeat of yesterday in that we woke up at 6am, had breakfast and then left for our drive from Olifants to Bateleur Bush Camp. You might be wondering (or at least you should be) how I have managed to post a blog from a Bush Camp. The reality is that we have no cellphone signal and that was a loss to everyone. We all reckon we could manage for a day or so but anything longer than that would be a tragedy.  Incredibly though the reception her has WiFi (why on earth we don’t know) and even more incredibly it is unlocked. We are the nearest possible hut to reception and I have 2 bars of WiFi on my laptop (none on my iPhone though) so just strong enough to connect and send.

The drive from Olifants to Bateleur is about 120 km.  It was pretty uneventful in that we did not see anything major at all (unless you classify Elephants as major). We stopped for morning coffee at Letaba, Ice Creams and a few other purchases at Mopani and then onto to Bateleur. When we left at 7am this morning it was already 20 degrees and by 11am it was up to 28 degrees. Animals were scarce and even the birding wasn’t great. There were times when the bushveld was just quite – not a thing was heard at all.

By after Mopani the car inhabitants were dropping like flies and soon I could not even see Helen as she has become horizontal on the very back seat. Michael was examining the insides of his eyelids and Stephen was either nodding in agreement with me or nodding right off to sleep. Only Chloe was awake though she didn’t spot anything, but to be fair neither did I.  Under these circumstances you would think it appropriate to let Chloe try her hand with driving on my lap but I would never allow such a thing in a hired car of course. Neither would it be appropriate for Stephen later to have a go with driving a manual and trying a hill start.

We got to Bateleur Bush Camp at just after 1pm. When I walked into reception the ranger on duty greeted me by name. I was very surprised but he said we were the biggest group arriving today so he knew immediately it was us. There are only 7 huts at the camp. We have hut number 1 which is also nearest the bird hide. While we were having a late lunch a herd of elephant came down to drink at the waterhole which you can see from the hide and from our veranda. About 30 elephants including a number of very small baby elephants as well. I ventured to the bird hide and saw them up close (about 10 meters away) with only a flimsy fence between me and them. About the closest I have been to elephants and not in a vehicle.

Late afternoon we headed for one of the local dams. Only residents of the camp have access to these dams and as there are only 7 huts that means traffic is pretty limited. As it is very dry up North we were hoping to see some game there and we weren’t disappointed. There were elephant, impala, hippo and crocs. In addition there were lots of birds and we managed to add a whole lot of new ones to our trip list. Still no lifers for the trip even though we are up to 87 birds so far in 3 days. Our target for 5 days is usually 100 birds and so I would now be disappointed if we don’t reach that at least by tomorrow and hopefully pass it even. We did see at least 2 birds were could not identify and need some professional help with them (we have photos of at least one) so they might be the lifers we are hoping for.

On the way to the dam everyone was searching for a cell signal and Helen said if we get it everyone would be happy stopping there rather than at the dam! As it turned out, on the way back we did get a signal and did stop for a minute or so until another car started to approach and we knew we had to move off (the roads are pretty narrow and really only single lane). We also needed to get back to the camp as the gates close at 6pm (we got in at 5:57pm).

Braai, reminiscing, Michael mimicking the Spar announcer again (and his school teachers as well) and we all went to our respective rooms. 10:42pm. At 10:30pm I had finished the blog and tried to publish it and as I did it gave me a can’t find signal and I had to re-type most of it. It had fortunately automatically saved about 25% of it. I think the 2nd version is better than the first. Sorry – no pictures as connection too slow and camera in car.  Will try to upload some tomorrow assuming they don’t block the WiFi!

Until then!