So we woke up about as early today as we ever have during this trip. The alarm was set for 5:00 so that we could be at the gates to Kruger not long after they open at 5:30. Jenny packed a very nice picnic lunch for us and we headed out into the misty rainy morning towards the park gates. We had planned on buying a 'wild card' for the two of us that would grant us access to 80 national parks in Southern Africa for R560 for the two of us. This seemed like a brilliant idea because a day pass for the two of us to Kruger was going to cost about R150. We figured that by the end of our travels (or possibly the end of our stay near Kruger) that we would more than use the R560 worth of entrance fees.
We arrived at the gate and filled out the relevant paperwork concerning vehicle registration and proceeded to the entrance. We were told when we approached the entrance that I needed to prove recindency in SA to qualify for the R560 couples pass. Without a residency permit in my passport the price all of a sudden became R340 for Jenny and R1350 for myself. So that was that, we opted not to go to the park today because the weather was rubbish and the cost was way too high. Jenny was worried that the day would be a wash but I reassured her that we would find something to do and the day would not be a waste. Because we arrived at the gate soon after they opened it was still very early in the morning. We figured we should probably find something to do today that involved a little bit of driving so that we would arrive when shops and businesses had a remote chance of being open.
Jenny checked the map and sat nav and we decided to drive to Sabie, a small town about 50km away and it looked like the drive took us through an interesting mountain pass. The drive turned out to be nothing less than spectacular and the road made me wish that we were driving a small sports car rather than a 107hp land rover. By the time that we made it to Sabie it was still only 6:30 in the morning and we knew nothing would be open this early. To waste the right amount of time we drove through the town and along a road that took us to several of the nearby waterfalls. We visited the first called Bridal Falls, expecting no one to be there as it was so early in the morning and so we were surprised when someone came out of a little hut and asked us for R5 each to drive closer to the falls, that we could clearly see from where we were.
The next falls we visited were called Lone falls, and we decided to pay the R10 to go in. There were two pathways leading up to the falls, and we chose the one on the right and walked back on the left hand path. It was really quite beautiful being able to get that close to the waterfall, it was not very big, only about 7m in diameter but the top of it was about 60m above us and the noise it made when it hit the water was amazing! The last falls in the area were called the Horseshoe Falls, because the water came down on two sides because of a large overhanging rock. We didn't have to pay to go and look at the falls thankfully because no one was awake yet there :) Being a Sunday we were convinced we were going to find everything closed but soon after arriving we stumbled upon a small cafe that had breakfast, espresso and the golf on the telly; what more could I ask for.
What we could have asked for was breakfast without the annoying interruption of a small girl and her pet lady bug. She kept coming up to Jenny and wanting Jenny to take an overwhelming interest in her insect friend. We kept encouraging the girl to go back to where she came from to no avail, until we asked the owners of the restaurant to make sure she didn't return. This did the trick and we continued our breakfast in peace. Once we finished eating we went to Spar next door to where we ate breakfast so we could pick up the ingredients for the carbonara Jenny wanted to make for lunch. We have not had a terrible amount of starch in our diet recently (too many braais haha) and wanted nothing more than a filling pasta lunch.
Once we had our lunch supplies we spotted a second hand book store on our way out of town. We were both out of reading material for the trip so thought we would stop and pick up some new books. Jenny was searching for a copy of The Flame Trees of Thicka for her mum, and the owner was sure he had seen it before in the shop, but unfortunatley we couldn't find it anywhere. We did manage to find a very well written and comprehensive book on wine, how to buy it, taste it and store it. On the drive back Jenny read about how to store wine. Do you know that red wines should be served between 12'c and 18'c, which is actually a little cooler than some room temperatures, so the benefit from a short while in the fridge before being drunk. Dan also learned that in a cellar white wines should be stored on the bottom, then delicate reds, then younger reds and then port. This is because the air towards the floor is generally colder as heat rises, and white wines age best between 12'c and 15'c whilst red wines age best a couple of degrees warmer.
When we got home I lay down on the sofa to watch tv, and ended up having a 2 hour long nap while Dan read the wine book! Apparently I stirred a few times and Dan would just come and tuck me back up and I went straight back to sleep. After my deliciously long nap I cooked our carbonara and we spent the rest of the afternoon, you guessed it, watching movies! Later in the afternoon we walked down to the boma and walked about half a kilometre down the hiking trail and sat on one of the rocks for a while. We were lucky enough to have an angry sounding mongoose scamper by, who stopped for just long enough that we got a good look at him. There is a pool table up by the swimming pool so later that evening we took a savanna and a castle and played a couple of games. There was no cue ball on the table, so we had to substitute one of the numbers to be our cue ball instead. I won the first game we played, Dan won the next two :) Dinner on the braai were delicious BBQ chicken wings that we bought at Pick and Pay, and then it was off for another good nights sleep!
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