Bush Break

It was my birthday in January so I arranged a mini bush break to Black Rhino Game Lodge in Pilanesberg Nature Reserve.  I drove up on a Saturday morning in beautifully cool weather, it's about a 3 hour drive from home on good roads.  I checked in, had lunch (delicious ostrich fillet), and then relaxed until going out on the game drive at 4.

 

 

Lodge number 16 was home for the weekend - such a clever room layout

 

 

 

 

I opened the stacking doors wide and listened to ...silence ...birds ... frogs.  I LOVED it!  I read, I doodled in my colouring book, I breathed deeply

I travelled alone but I wasn't 'alone'.  I met wonderful people at the lodge, and never ate a meal alone.  I enjoyed the freedom to be on my own or spend time with the other guests.  On day 1, I had dinner with Bryan and Dell from Australia.  I was delighted that they were also keen birders and photographers.

Thank you Lord for blessing me with the opportunity to visit this beautiful place and to meet new people.

 

Scrap Addicts

The Scrap Addicts Group gathered at my home on Saturday for our first scrap date of the new year.  I love being with these ladies!  I got spoilt with belated birthday gifts - thanks everyone!!

We phoned Lynette in Cape Town to check that she was also scrapbooking even though she now lives in another city.  She was scrapping but had to send 'photographic evidence'.  haha!  We're flying down in early March to scrap with her - can't wait!

We had lunch at Urban Angel in Boskruin - one of my favourite restaurants.  They've updated their menu and we enjoyed delicious food and freshly squeezed juices.



Miss Ruby

“What greater gift than the love of a cat.”       Charles Dickens

Scrapbook layouts

I scrapbooked a fair bit over December.  While the memories are fresh and the longing is great, I'm working steadily to finish my Alaska trip.  I will return to beautiful Alaska someday...

 

Rather than just making pretty pages, I'm really focusing on telling the story about my bucket list trip, so that I will remember every detail in future when I page through my Alaska album.  I want to remember it all...

 

 

Colouring-in book

I store my watercolour crayons and colouring-in book in a little canvas bag which I found at a stationery shop in Doringkloof Mall in Pretoria.  It's easy to grab 'n go when I travel.

 

Here are a few more pages from my colouring-in book...

 

Zaagkuil Bird Sanctuary

While at Zaagkuilsdrift Lodge, we visited the Bird Sanctuary again.  See here for my last blog post about the Sanctuary.  This time we did a much earlier walk at 7am, and because of the cooler weather, many of the owls were actually on the ground.  Such amazingly beautiful creatures...

Soy owns the property and personally funds the food for all the birds,

and pays the salaries of the staff.  This Marabou stork is human imprinted, and loves Soy as his 'dad'

Soy imports worms from China for this very noisy Korhaan.  Pieter fetched him from Bloemfontein recently and had to endure 5 hours in the vehicle with him shouting VERY loudly all the way to the Sanctuary.  He was apparently somebody's pet (seriously!!) and they didn't want him after he matured and made a noise.

 

 

 

New year getaway

I usually spend the old/new year quietly at home, but this year decided to get away to Zaagkuilsdrift Lodge with my friends Leonie and Cathy.  Leonie and I recently visited Zaagkuil and really enjoyed it so a return visit was ideal for new year.

 

We arrived in the scorching heat (36 degrees) on 31 December, and immediately ordered a beer shandy (ice cold beer and lemonade) to revive us - delicious!

 

and then we headed to the pool to cool off

 

Dinner was in the boma around the fire.  Everyone drifted off to bed at around 11pm.  I showered and then headed outside again to get some cool air.  Leonie was on the verandah having a smoke so we 'accidently' stayed awake to see in the new year.  It was lovely

our wonderful hosts Gerrie and Jaco 

On New Years' day,  we did an afternoon game drive.  The sky was black with clouds but no rain fell; the overcast day was cooler than expected (thank you Lord!) and gave us some relief from the terrible heat-wave

Alec is the Lodge Supervisor - he is such an amazing young man

 a flat tyre on our game drive was no problem for the guys

While they fixed the vehicle, we enjoyed sundowners