... Jozie
Where has the time gone this year!!
May has now come and gone, which means our latest trip to SA has also come and gone.
Where has the time gone this year!!
May has now come and gone, which means our latest trip to SA has also come and gone.
We arrived in Jhb on Saturday, 22 May and was fetched by Tim (if you remember from earlier posts, one of our groomsman/MC) and spent the day/evening with him. The weather was very kind to us and we spent the day relaxing and sunning ourselves like dassies in his garden...chatting and catching up since the last time we had seen him almost 6 months before. Later we were joined by Michelle for dinner a typical South African braai (meat overload as always!)
Sunday morning the weather was again very kind and Tim took us Aloe Ridge for breakfast...it's a combination of a hotel, wedding venue and restaurant on a large piece of land, with wild animals and a deck overlooking a beautiful ravine. When we arrived, there were signs all over saying ‘Watch out for hedgehogs’...not a hedgehog in sight we disembarked from the car where we were greeted with the sounds of baboons ‘barking’ at each other. They were rather large and seemed to be fighting/playing near the rubbish bins. Nevertheless we made it inside safe and sound, where the receptionist imparted her wisdom...should we come across a baboon not to look it in the eye...no cause for alarm then! Not really thinking about it any further, we walked along the path out the back to the deck, where we settled in to a delicious buffet breakfast. The views were amazing with ostriches, buck and baboons off in the distance. 
Tucking into our second helpings of breakfast, a very large, curious and hungry baboon decided to grace us with its presence! Firstly, just by sitting on the railing of the deck...about a metre or so away from us...so far enough away, but still a little too close for comfort. Before we had time to raise the alarm (i.e. catch the waiters attention), it had made its way to our table...it grabbed 2 pieces of toast from Tim's plate, a butter (with the silver wrapper still on it) which it proceeded to shove into his mouth, paper and all, before scraping half of the food on Tim's plate into its mouth and on to the toast it had already grabbed (quite clever really!). Since it was standing directly in front of me (if you can picture a table which seats 4 people, Mark and Tim were opposite each other with me in the middle of them, but no one in front of me, well until the baboon joined us)...all I could think was not to look it in the eye! So I grabbed the camera (no not to take pictures...but just in case it decided to run off with it) and a turned my back to it whilst we all jointly got up from the table and quietly moved away. Finally we managed to get the waiters attention who bravely proceeded to come at it with a stick, which did the trick in scary it off
(well for awhile). Feeling a little unsettled, the table was cleaned up and another helping of food was served. For the remainder of the time we were there, the ‘friendly’ baboon tried its luck a few more times around the deck area, but the staff were on red alert with sticks and cattys.
Sunday morning the weather was again very kind and Tim took us Aloe Ridge for breakfast...it's a combination of a hotel, wedding venue and restaurant on a large piece of land, with wild animals and a deck overlooking a beautiful ravine. When we arrived, there were signs all over saying ‘Watch out for hedgehogs’...not a hedgehog in sight we disembarked from the car where we were greeted with the sounds of baboons ‘barking’ at each other. They were rather large and seemed to be fighting/playing near the rubbish bins. Nevertheless we made it inside safe and sound, where the receptionist imparted her wisdom...should we come across a baboon not to look it in the eye...no cause for alarm then! Not really thinking about it any further, we walked along the path out the back to the deck, where we settled in to a delicious buffet breakfast. The views were amazing with ostriches, buck and baboons off in the distance. 
Tucking into our second helpings of breakfast, a very large, curious and hungry baboon decided to grace us with its presence! Firstly, just by sitting on the railing of the deck...about a metre or so away from us...so far enough away, but still a little too close for comfort. Before we had time to raise the alarm (i.e. catch the waiters attention), it had made its way to our table...it grabbed 2 pieces of toast from Tim's plate, a butter (with the silver wrapper still on it) which it proceeded to shove into his mouth, paper and all, before scraping half of the food on Tim's plate into its mouth and on to the toast it had already grabbed (quite clever really!). Since it was standing directly in front of me (if you can picture a table which seats 4 people, Mark and Tim were opposite each other with me in the middle of them, but no one in front of me, well until the baboon joined us)...all I could think was not to look it in the eye! So I grabbed the camera (no not to take pictures...but just in case it decided to run off with it) and a turned my back to it whilst we all jointly got up from the table and quietly moved away. Finally we managed to get the waiters attention who bravely proceeded to come at it with a stick, which did the trick in scary it off
(well for awhile). Feeling a little unsettled, the table was cleaned up and another helping of food was served. For the remainder of the time we were there, the ‘friendly’ baboon tried its luck a few more times around the deck area, but the staff were on red alert with sticks and cattys.
Welcome to Africa! :-)
After we had finished over indulging, as one always does with a buffet, we headed off to Fourways to meet my sister and her family. We were greeted with the warmest of welcomes with big bear hugs from Tayla and Chesney for their Aunty Lu, and as always they were a bit shy of Uncle Mark in the beginning.
We had planned to go to the Lion Park, so Claire was busy packing a picnic lunch when we got there. We weren’t at their house long before we all piled into the car to head off to the Lion Park to get there in time for 'feeding time' at 12h00.
There are various packs of lions in different enclosures within the park (4 enclosures in total), some with white lions, and some with the usual golden coloured lions and some with a mixture of both. We paid our entrance fee and after teasing Chesney that she had been picked as dinner for the lions we drove off to find the first enclosure. We parked our car waiting for the food truck to arrive, not quite sure what to expect, the lions were all around the enclosure and we weren’t quite sure where the best spot would be to see the most lions. It turns out we had a good spot! We saw the lions all start moving from the spot they were in, and realised they smelt the food truck which was on its way. The gates opened and a bakkie (with an open back) loaded with animal parts came speeding through...and much to my amazement there was a live person (dressed in white as if he were a butcher) on the back of the bakkie too, with all this fresh meat!! That poor guy has got to have the most unfortunate (and unsafe)
job in the world! Throwing the parts of meat out along the way to the hungry lions. The lions were all over the place, following this bakkie around which had to keep moving (for obvious reasons), scattering the meat. It was quite exciting watching all this unfold, although I think my nerves at seeing the poor man on the back of the bakkie got my adrenaline pumping more than knowing there were hungry lions on the other side of the car door! From there we drove around the other 3 enclosures and snapped away and the beautiful (well fed and content) lions.
From there we went to the picnic area, safely away from the lions and Claire laid out her delicious picnic spread of homemade goodies.
Refuelled yet again and ready to go, we headed into the park where they have other animals to look at like foxes, porcupines, hyenas and cheetahs. They also had 2 friendly giraffes and some ostriches which you could feed and 2 lion cub enclosures for petting.
One of the lion cub enclosures had the really small cubs, possibly just a month or two old. The other had the slightly bigger cubs, possibly about 6 months old. The queue unfortunately for the little ones was ridiculously long, so we decided to brave it and went into the older cubs enclosure. Some were so sleepy and just lay around on each other sunning themselves. Others were incredibly playful and cheeky...and you had to be on your guard at all times, as they liked to jump on you the minute you bent down to scratch one of the others. One got very 'up close and personal' with Tayla and managed to hook his claw into her leg, whilst trying to play with her (meanwhile it was probably twice her size) but it wasn’t too serious, as it didn’t go through her jeans and no blood was drawn. They were very cute, but even although they were small (their paws where HUGE) their strength was amazing!
After we had finished over indulging, as one always does with a buffet, we headed off to Fourways to meet my sister and her family. We were greeted with the warmest of welcomes with big bear hugs from Tayla and Chesney for their Aunty Lu, and as always they were a bit shy of Uncle Mark in the beginning.
We had planned to go to the Lion Park, so Claire was busy packing a picnic lunch when we got there. We weren’t at their house long before we all piled into the car to head off to the Lion Park to get there in time for 'feeding time' at 12h00.
There are various packs of lions in different enclosures within the park (4 enclosures in total), some with white lions, and some with the usual golden coloured lions and some with a mixture of both. We paid our entrance fee and after teasing Chesney that she had been picked as dinner for the lions we drove off to find the first enclosure. We parked our car waiting for the food truck to arrive, not quite sure what to expect, the lions were all around the enclosure and we weren’t quite sure where the best spot would be to see the most lions. It turns out we had a good spot! We saw the lions all start moving from the spot they were in, and realised they smelt the food truck which was on its way. The gates opened and a bakkie (with an open back) loaded with animal parts came speeding through...and much to my amazement there was a live person (dressed in white as if he were a butcher) on the back of the bakkie too, with all this fresh meat!! That poor guy has got to have the most unfortunate (and unsafe)
job in the world! Throwing the parts of meat out along the way to the hungry lions. The lions were all over the place, following this bakkie around which had to keep moving (for obvious reasons), scattering the meat. It was quite exciting watching all this unfold, although I think my nerves at seeing the poor man on the back of the bakkie got my adrenaline pumping more than knowing there were hungry lions on the other side of the car door! From there we drove around the other 3 enclosures and snapped away and the beautiful (well fed and content) lions.
From there we went to the picnic area, safely away from the lions and Claire laid out her delicious picnic spread of homemade goodies.
Refuelled yet again and ready to go, we headed into the park where they have other animals to look at like foxes, porcupines, hyenas and cheetahs. They also had 2 friendly giraffes and some ostriches which you could feed and 2 lion cub enclosures for petting.
One of the lion cub enclosures had the really small cubs, possibly just a month or two old. The other had the slightly bigger cubs, possibly about 6 months old. The queue unfortunately for the little ones was ridiculously long, so we decided to brave it and went into the older cubs enclosure. Some were so sleepy and just lay around on each other sunning themselves. Others were incredibly playful and cheeky...and you had to be on your guard at all times, as they liked to jump on you the minute you bent down to scratch one of the others. One got very 'up close and personal' with Tayla and managed to hook his claw into her leg, whilst trying to play with her (meanwhile it was probably twice her size) but it wasn’t too serious, as it didn’t go through her jeans and no blood was drawn. They were very cute, but even although they were small (their paws where HUGE) their strength was amazing!
Mark went off with Tayla and Chesney (who were by now not quite as shy around Uncle Mark aka Jungle-Gym) to buy the food for the Giraffes and Ostriches and came back with 3 packets, one for each of the kids (Tayla, Ches and Me!) :-) We all had a great time feeding the giraffes, they
have to be one of the cutest (although hugest) wild animals! They were very gentle in licking up the pellets from our hands and there were lots of giggles of delight from Tayla and Chesney as the Giraffe's slobbered all over their hands. We then went on to feed the Ostriches, which are unbelievably accurate in pecking each pellet out of your hand. There was however one cheeky one, who decided my hand looked like one great big pellet and managed to get all 4 of my fingers into its mouth, which I quickly retrieved (thankfully they don’t have teeth!). :-)
Once the pellets ran out it was time to bring our adventure filled day at the Lion Park to a close and we headed for the car. En route out of park, we were surprised to see yet another friendly giraffe, who decided the car looked tasty and proceeded to lick it, before sticking its head through the open sun roof!
The evening followed with yet more delicious food...a lovely roast followed by yummy creme brulee dessert (I had given Claire a blow torch (for cooking) for Christmas and she decided it was time to put it to work!) Definitely worth the effort!
Before we knew it our time in Jozie was up and we headed for the airport the following day, to make our way to good old East London!
Once the pellets ran out it was time to bring our adventure filled day at the Lion Park to a close and we headed for the car. En route out of park, we were surprised to see yet another friendly giraffe, who decided the car looked tasty and proceeded to lick it, before sticking its head through the open sun roof!
The evening followed with yet more delicious food...a lovely roast followed by yummy creme brulee dessert (I had given Claire a blow torch (for cooking) for Christmas and she decided it was time to put it to work!) Definitely worth the effort!
Before we knew it our time in Jozie was up and we headed for the airport the following day, to make our way to good old East London! 
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