Marakele

The family holiday this year was KRUGER. But because I'm pregnant, we didn't want to risk going into a Malaria zone. So Reinier & I decided to have our own 'family holiday' at Marakele. It is like a mini Kruger...(also claiming to have the Big 5). I say 'claiming' because we didn't see any Lions, and they dont have any Buffalo. hmmm. It was still a very enjoyable & relaxing week! On the way there we stopped at a cute little place for breakfast.

(Thanks for the mountain design vest Dad & Mum, it fits see?? Just cant zip it up :-) )
Cool murals painted on the walls

A scarey looking spider Reinier spotted on a tree near our tent. Later on we realised its dead!

We went to visit Reiniers cousin Maurits & Annemarie vd Wetering who live about 60km out of Thabazimbi, near where we were camping. The place is just fantastic!! It is a 1800ha breeding game farm. What a nice job, but very hard work! Here he is braaing a whole batch of Waterbuck steaks & wors, it was delicious!! Sorry there's not more photos, we'll have to go back there sometime.

The kids having running races

Maurits' Sable Bull - just magnificent, look at those horns! Its quite a risky business, they need to be monitored very closely. Maurits showed us a 'candid camera' in a tree which monitors how often it comes to drink etc.

The bulls family. When a male Sable reaches the age of 18months, it has to get taken out of this breeding pen straight away, otherwise the dominant bull will kill it.

Hmm, who's been scratching at the camper?? We're not sure what left this paw print...

It doesn't get more relaxing than this...watching the sun go down in the bushveld.

Nice scenery

Hello Dassie! Warming himself up in the sun.

We were camped very close by this water hole, so some days we just stayed at our tent the whole day with a good book. Every now and then you look up and see something else having a drink! Kleinkolmuskeljaatkat!! (say that fast!) English: small spotted genet. He came past our tent twice. Their head looks almost like a possums, and too small for the body.

A Jackal. We saw a really amazing thing happening right infront of our tent. There were two jackals constantly terrorising a large male Impala. One would distract him infront, while the other one would bite the tendons on the back legs. At one stage one of the jackals was hanging from the bucks nose, there was alot of blood running down its neck. Then a lone Wildebeest came to help the buck, and tried to chase the jackals away. The buck followed the Wildebeest around for protection, but when dusk was coming you could hear more & more jackals calling each other. Then it got too dark to see, but we're sure the buck didn't survive the night. We never thought that two jackals would attempt attacking a big Impala! Sly things. You'd think the buck could easily outrun them, but we think the jackals had been tiring him out and teasing him for a long time.

A house wifes work is never done :-) Hans & Marjolein came out to join us for the last evening, lekker gekuier!

Wassup?

33 weeks

How cool is this? On the way home we saw this "Bushveld Boerewors" stall, its just on some farmers farm, Reinier stopped and bought one. Yummo!

(PS: we saw LOTS of animals, but theres just way too many to post. We were mostly 'birding' which was alot of fun, Reinier got to mark off quite a few new birds in the book. Maybe one day we'll beat Ard and Gerbens 600 or so!)