game drive three (evening) with beautiful elephants (balule nature reserve)

First zebra sighting of the trip! These guys were tough to find in the dense undergrowth.

A vulture perched high in a tree.

First glimpse of another elephant! 

game drive two and bush walk (balule nature reserve, kruger national park)

Our second game drive, the following morning, wasn't quite the showstopper that the first was, but we got to see some more beautiful elephants, and snap a few pictures of leaping impala. We spotted this jackal first thing, and then were scared nearly out of our seats by a big golden orb spider that latched on to the car's roof and hung around for about half an hour. 

Later in the day we went on a bush walk with Sipho, who spoke about the various uses that Shangaan, his people, had for plants and animals in the bush. The most interesting was the role of the marula tree, which is used to interlope with ancestors. Jim had an excellent spot during the walk: a Mozambiquan Spitting Cobra, up in a dead tree, hunting for small rodents or getting some sun. 

game drive one (balule nature reserve, kruger national park)

Game drive number one got us up close to action nearly immediately out of our lodge. We came across a young bull elephant, and then a "memory" of females drinking at a water hole. 

Then we rushed off to catch a glimpse of two black rhinos gallivanting around. 

A short while later, we were astounded to see a female lion and her cubs. The dark night made for few pictures.

Our week on "safari" was off to a great start - and it got even better!

The orange stripe on his ear is likely mud that has rubbed off from rubbing on a tree.

Elephant tail!

Checking us out. He was about 8-10 feet away at the closest point.

scenic route (blyde river canyon, south africa)

We have been blog delinquents! March was a busy month: Jennifer went back to the States for a wedding (congrats to the newlyweds Mr. and Mrs. Coscino!) and a Minneapolis visit, and Jim ran a science fair, an Eco Day, and exams for his students before "fall" break.

Jennifer's parents Tim and Karen came to visit for the last two weeks of March. We spent a few days in Cape Town together, and then toured the winelands of the Western Cape for a weekend before heading north to Johannesburg and driving to Kruger National Park. Here are some shots from the stunning end of our drive: the Panorama Route and Blyde River Canyon.

We'll post photos from our first game drive today too.

Mac Mac Falls on the way to the Blyde River Canyon.

Another of the many waterfalls on the way to the canyon; this one was called the Berlin Falls.

river camping, wyn tasting (bonnievale, south africa)

Jim and I had another stellar weekend, this time in Bonnievale, one of the small towns in the Robertson valley about two and a half hours outside of Cape Town. The valley is full of wine and citrus farms, and ringed with a few pretty mountain ranges, including the Langeberg. We drove up Friday afternoon, and after fighting traffic, battling with wind to set up a tent, and a slow start to our fire-building, we really felt we deserved a drink!

We enjoyed wine tasting on Saturday at some beautiful family-run wine farms, including one that has been making incredible chardonnays since the 17th century. We also got to make our own bubbly! "Methode Cap Classique," or MCC, is the regional term South African winemakers have come up with to identify bottle-fermented sparkling wine made in South Africa - what "champagne" is to the Champagne region of france, "Methode Cap Classique" is to South African wine makers. At one winery, we got to finish the last step of a bottle of MCC: pop off the cap top which has sealed the second fermentation, watch the frozen tip of the bottle fly out, put in some sugar to help the final fermentation (and give it more bubbles), cork it, and package it. Very fun! We also managed to swim a couple of times during the hot day.

Sunday morning we went for a beautiful hike. We got a late start, so I was a little cranky out in the hot sun, but Jim enjoyed looking at some unique geological features - an inclusion from a partial volcanic eruption, and quartzite and sandstone in the rocks. The views were pretty too.

We camped here, next to the river. A beautiful peaceful setting complete with rope swings for getting in the water!

De Wetshof winery, a family-owned vineyard that has been making wine since the 17th century. There were cannons on either side of this building, modeled after designs by Thiebault (a famous French architect who built the family's Cape Town house), from we guessed the 18th century. They looked well-used too!

The winemaker, Philip Jonker, models how they get yeast sediment out of fermenting sparkling wine. Turn the bottles slowly (over months) a little at a time, until the sediment collects in the cap. Then put the bottle upside-down in a chemical solution that freezes the liquid. Then....

rock pools at beaverlac (porterville, south africa)

Last weekend, we headed up camping to a place called Beaverlac. This citrus-farm-turned-campsite had stunning scenery and really beautiful rock pools for swimming. It happened to be ridiculously hot all weekend, so we swam a lot, sweated a lot, ate a lot, and sat in the shade with cold beers.

We went with our friends Candida and Euen (Candida teaches 5th grade at Jim's school), Patrick (who teaches 4th grade), and Candida's friends, Tracey and Lewellen. Tracey and Lewellen are Afrikaaners, and they taught us a thing or two about braiing and making potjie (pronounced "por-ki-ey," sort of) - a delicious lamb stew. We each were asked to bring up some wood for making fires to cook over - but not just any wood. Candida wrote to us: "If each of you can try to bring chairs and a bag of wood...but wood has to be rooikrans or kameldooring (or something like that) as Afrikaaners are very particular about their braaing wood and Euan and I have brought a fire starter pack once which did not go down well!"

The rooikrans I bought at the local supermarket, unfortunately, was wet and Jim spent a hot hour trying to get a fire going with it. We'll do better next time!

Fields along the road.

Sunset as we drive up the mountain pass to get to the campsite.

Jim slaves over a hot fire to cook our morning bacon!

Looking out over the valley and citrus groves on our way to a rock pool.

suikerbossie circuit hike (cape town)

A few weeks ago, we took advantage of a beautiful day and hiked up to Jonas Peak. The route ran along a trail just above some non-native pines to beautiful views over Hout Bay. Then it turned up a deep kloof (ravine) covered with native yellowood trees, which we climbed up for about an hour over giant boulders and even up a small waterfall. The trees were beautiful, and the ravine narrowed as we got closer to the top with steep rock walls on either side.

We popped out on top of the ravine at a grassy saddle with a few marshy areas to walk through. We walked across the top toward the Twelve Apostles and an overlook of Camp's Bay, and then turned south to walk along the mountain's edge and look down at Londudno, another beach which we were directly above. We took a short detour to peak Jonas Peak for 360 degree views of the ocean, the bays, and the mountains. Then we started to descend through an incredibly steep ravine on the ocean-side with beautiful views of the water the whole way down. The trail was crafty and in great shape, so it made quick work of what looked, at first glance, like a challenging route.

I now enjoy pointing out the kloofs we climbed every time we drive past on our way to Hout Bay or the beach!

Camps Bay, Clifton, and Lion's Head.

Landudno below us.

family vacation (cape town)

Just after returning from Namibia, the Petoskey's descended on Cape Town for a visit! We had an awesome two weeks with Betsy, Bill, Cassie & Craig, complete with beaches, wine tastings, lots of card-playing, and a few big seafood meals.

Here are a few photos that I took during the visit.

Our makeshift Christmas tree!

Wine tasting at Groot Constantia

Day at the beach: preparing to bury Cassie.

Looking good!

We took the crew to a Saturday market and ate yummy food; this was a giant batch of paella (it was delicious).

More wine tasting at Eagle's Nest.

day 9 & 10: sossusvlei and christmas day (namibia)

We spent two nights at Sesriem, and drove into Sossussvlei both mornings. The first morning, we slept in (until about 6:45am, when the sun was already hitting the tent), made coffee, and moseyed out to Sossussvlei to explore. We climbed the dune above Dead Vlei, a famous dry pan with dead trees scattered throughout that make for unique pictures. While we were there, we spotted a group climbing "Big Daddy," the tallest dune around the vlei. We decided that we'd better try to peak it during our sunrise walk the next day.

So, on Christmas morning, we woke up around 4:45, packed up camp in ten minutes, and drove over to the gate. We were the first ones out into the park when the gates opened at 5am, and we cruised out in the dark watching the stars slowly disappear and the dark outline of the dunes appear on the horizon as the sky got lighter. We parked the car an hour later, and jogged across another pan to start our climb. We huffed and puffed as quick as we could to get up to a point high enough to watch the sun rise. After resting and watching for a while, I convinced Jim to stick with our climb (we were getting tired with no one else on the dune to make tracks for us to walk in!) and we made it to the top of Big Daddy before running back down. (To get yourself off that sand dune you've worked so hard to climb, you just point your feet toward the bottom and start running! A scary feeling when it is really steep, but the sand is deep and soft and slows you down).

We have two videos from Christmas morning on YouTube: Climbing Up and Running Down.

We got a late start this morning, and it was hot, hot, hot for our climb up the dune above Dead Vlei.

Dead Vlei.

Sweating in the sun.

Just hanging around! It was really hot out, ok? We were acting a little silly.

Pool-side in the shade later on Christmas Eve. It was all we could do to keep cool.

Hurrying to the dunes on Christmas morning!

Starting the long, slow climb.

Sun is getting closer....