Our South Coast Holiday

We really had a nice time at the South Coast! Spent some time at different malls, several beaches etc. I bought a lot of Indian spices that will be nice for my curries. The to main attractions were uShaka Marine World in Durban and Croc World just a few kilometers from where we stayed.

I will not upload any pictures to this blog post because they are already on the following sites:

http://www.panoramio.com/user/579549

http://community.webshots.com/user/tommy_javerfalk

Enjoy!

Escape to Chimp Eden

I am a bit late with my blogging... I wanted to blog about our wonderful holiday at the South Coast of Natal, and I will still do that, but...!!!

Today we had a wonderful experience at the Chimp Eden, which is located only 10 km from our home. We booked a tour yesterday and was lucky because the director, Eugene Cussons, would be our tour guide. We is now well known all over the world due to the Animal Planet programs about his rehabilitation efforts for neglected and abused chimps. The program has been seen by more than 1 billion people!

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Escape_to_Chimp_Eden

We were also a small group of visitors and had a lot of opportunities to talk to him and ask questions. He actually showed how to communicate with the chimps, and I had a nice contact with young chimp who wanted to play with me! He followed me on his side of the fence, and as soon as I stopped he stopped too, and we had eye-contact. I made the sounds Eugene taught us, inviting to playful activity, and it really worked! Absolutely amazing....

Eugene at the left, and Ivan and Estian to the right.

Eugene and Leona

Eugene telling the how he started this project.

Some close-ups of one of the Chimps...

It was an awesome experience!!!!

A Crazy Christmas Eve...

I really have to try to get a Christmas feeling, but it is difficult... It's very hot here, around +35. In the evening of 22 December our geyser burst... 150 liters of boiling water flushing out, but luckily there is a drain pipe diverting it to the outside, so we didn't have any water damage. And today we had a new geyser installed. Christmas Eve is not a public holiday here, everybody is working normal hours. So we were actually very lucky!

In the late morning I went downtown to buy Christmas gifts for Monday's, the gardener, kids. The whole town is crazy... Traffic is very wild, and the queues in the shops are very long. Bought some chips, sweets but mostly useful thing for their school work, like pens, scissors, rulers etc. etc.

Both Ivan and Estian are here now, and we have decided to have Hot Buffalo Chicken Wings for supper tonight. Not a typical Christmas dish, but we all love it, so why not?

Severe Storms...

In the last 10 days there has been three severe storms affecting Nelspruit. Since we were away on holiday to the South Coast, we didn't experience the first two storms, but the third was two night ago, and it was bad... A lot of destruction in our garden... Some broad leaf plants having the leaves perforated by the big hail. But now it is nice weather, +34 at this moment...

Th very cute little boy of our neighbors picked up some of the hails, put it into their freezer and came over to show us. They are really golf ball sized!!! A lot of cars got heavily dented...

Holiday at the South Coast

We have now been at Illovo Beach for five days. We are staying in a flat owned by one of our friends who stay in the same street as us in Nelspruit. Illovo beach is located about 40km south of Durban. The weather has been nice and warm, but with some rain every day. We are enjoying it very much! We have been to several beaches and when it has been raining we have been to a few very nice shopping centers/malls. Two days ago we visited Leona's sister and her husband who stay further south. We will be here for another four days before we go home.



The Warner Beach is a quiet beach.




Sitting on the rocks and enjoying the waves is very relaxing!







This sand sculpture we saw at the beach in Amanzimtoti, which is a much more busy beach with lots of younger people, surfers etc.



We left the beach around lunch time when it started to rain a bit. We went back to our flat and relaxed, but then, after 6pm the sky cleared up and we went for a walk just before sunset.





The South Coast is a LOVELYplace!!!

Suppers in South Africa (11)

Tonight we had a very nice braai!!! Before I came to South Africa the first time, I heard that a braai is almost like a religion in South Africa. And I understand that ore and more for every year that I am staying here...

Whatever meat you put on the braai (in our case, the gas-braai), may it be beef, pork, lamb or chicken, it is such a wonderful quality of meat!

The traditional braai, with pap and sheeba, and some pumpkin or any other vegetables is just wonderful!

Tonight we had some very nice lamb steaks/chops, but for myself I had chosen a "man-size" T-bone steak! I think it was between 0.8-1.0 kg.... But I ate all of it... It took some time, but the soft meat and the fantastic flavors!!!!! And with a bottle of our own house wine... Chateau Augusta, which is a very nice Cabernet Sauvignion from the Cape. WOW!!!!

Correction!!!

It was of course served with BEANS!!!!

Suppers in South Africa (10)

These are some of my favorite dishes!!! Shame that one cannot upload the flavors... It tasted much better than it looks!

This is Chicken Schnitzels with Cous-Cous and a Honey-Mustard Sauce, served with beens... Yummy, Yummy!!!!

Pork Shanks... Cooked for 5 hours in the slow-cooker and then under the grill to make the rind crackling...

Served with a kind of Ratatouille and rosted potato wedges... Very nice indeed!!!

Not for Arachnophobiacs!

A few days ago we found this spider in one of our bathrooms... After checking in my spider-book I think it is a Wall Spider, which is completely harmless to humans.

Stormy Weather

Last week we had two really bad tropical storms. The first one on 10 November which was our 9th Anniversary. Very strong winds, a lot of thunder and lightnings and heavy rain. 44mm of rain in 20 minutes! The total precipitation was close to 100 mm over night. And three days later another storm with the same effects. It's good that the water reserves are filling up so we can irrigate our garden later this summer, but the immediate effect on the garden is not nice.



Parts of Nelspruit lost electricity for 18 hours. We only lost the lights in the upper part of our house, but since we were expecting guests we called an electrician on Saturday afternoon who was able to fix the lights.

Another Snake...

Yesterday our Boerboel, Diva, was barking intensively and when Leona looked out through her sliding door she saw a snake's tail disappearing behind some bricks. She noticed the color which resembled the color of a Black Mamba. So she phoned the snake rescuers who arrived within a few minutes. It didn't take them long to catch the snake. However, it was not a Black Mamba, but a totally harmless Spotted Bush Snake, but it was at least twice the size of the previous snake of that kind we have seen! The snake is easy to identify if you can see the front 1/3 of it because of its characteristic spotted color, but the other 2/3 has about the same color as a Black Mamba.
Just in case it was a Black Mamba I was ready with my .38 revolver loaded with "snake shots". They look like miniature shoot-gun ammunition, containing a lot of small lead pellets. Luckily no shots fired. The Spotted Bush Snake is actually quite beautiful.

WOW!!!

Yesterday I received a puzzling email. I booked my flights to Sweden about 3 weeks ago, with Air France as usual. For the last 3 years it has been a Boing 777 which is a nice airplane.
The email told me that I have been re-booked. I checked the dates and times but couldn't find any changes... But then!!! I noticed that the flight was not on a 777, but changed to an Airbus A380! That will be very exciting!

A Selection of KNP pictures

I took about 350 pictures during my KNP trip. Here are a few selected ones...



Portrait of a Steenbok






Baby Elephant Walk




Kudu




Ground Hornbill



Look at the eye-lashes!



Grey Heron




Reed Cormorant




Grey Heron




Cape Buffalo




Vultures




Vultures




Three Lions eating a Kudu




Spotted Hyena




Spotted Hyena

Back from the KNP

I'm back from a 3 day trip in the Kruger Park. Pictures will be posted within the next few days.

Suppers in South Africa(9)

I had planned to go to the Kruger National Park for 2 nights, but I woke up this morning with a bad cold. At least not the swine flu! So I cancelled my reservation and will go there in two weeks.
Since I'm doing most of the cooking, I decided to make it easy. And the choice was beef patties. Served with some steamed veggies, rice and an easy gravy. The result was quite nice!