MAY 1999
Winter is here at long last - I hate the hot humid weather
- love the chilly evenings and warm sunny days of our winter months. Nothing
like sitting around a log fire chatting about the days events and great
game-viewing. The warm sunny days enable you to catch a slight tan and not
cook. I have to occasionally put on longs at night or a jacket - but that
is the joys of living in Durban.
I have had a busy past month and it has been great. I went to Umlalazi Nature Reserve at the beginning of the month to test out my new tents and camping equipment I had bought - great, no problems, just it did not rain - I had designed the veranda of the tent to enable to keep the door open during the rain, oh well, maybe next time. I went up for one night with some buddies of mine and we enjoyed a walk to the Raffia Palms, watching the Zulu's cutting the grass in their annual cutting festival, we watched a variety of birds near the river and also popped down to the beach, which was too windy to swim at.
I also had an e-mail from Maurits who had returned to Brazil after his trip to Mocambique with my cousin - great to have his feedback...after visiting Mocambique he then ventured into Lesotho which he found windy and chilly on the days they were there - I guess travelling through mountains at an altitude of nearly 3000 metres this would be expected - even in summer. I love Lesotho - such a beautiful country and friendly people. It is a very 3rd or even 4th world country in the rural areas, which is about 95% of the country - great for adventurous travellers. Maurits, thanks again for the coffee - nothing better than genuine Brazilian coffee!!
Some time back I mentioned about winning the prize to a Bushlodge at Shongweni - well, I went.
My mother and I drove up on the Friday afternoon and met my brothers girlfriend with her children at the turnoff and then we drove to the Dam together. A Ranger, Brightman, met us and transferred all our equipment to his safari vehicle and then we proceeded on a game drive spotting a variety of animals en route to the lodge. It was a beautiful collection of log cabins built with great views over the flood-plain of the dam. There were 4 two-bedded en-suite cabins and a communal lounge, diningroom and kitchen, with a full time cook, who set about immediately with tea! There is no electricity, so cooking is done on gas and lighting is by solar-panels. My brother Sean was only to join us on Saturday afternoon. We supplied the food and Gloria cooked it - boy was the food delicious - a good cook! Well, after dinner we played monopoly for a while (me winning with the greatest properties but my mother with the greatest cash!) and then hit the sack.
Early the next morning at sunrise, it was tea and rusks and then Brightman took us on a one hour game walk, which turned out to be 2 and a half hours it was so much fun! We walked to within 10metres of a trio of Rhinos, plus were thrilled with a stampede of nearly 60 wildebeest running past us. We also saw impala, zebra, waterbuck, giraffe, a variety of birds including the bald ibis, hadeda, brown snake eagle, blackheaded heron,african spoonbill, Egyptian geese and yellowbilled duck. All-in-all a great morning of game viewing. Breakfast was a simple but tasty affair and then the remainder of the day was spent relaxing, exploring the nearby cliffs, playing cards, reading and more relaxing - until Sean arrived, just in time for tea and cake! I remained behind to baby-sit my god-daughter Erin whilst everyone else went on the nightdrive at sunset - the highlight being stopping the vehicle under 2 bushbabies in the tree. They saw a wide variety of animals and some nocturnal birdlife like the Dikkops and owls. My bonding with Erin was great - she is such a quiet baby girl - she fell asleep on my lap or chest a couple of time and even sat in the chair watching me prepare the dinner table for Gloria, who cooked a scrumptious Roast Leg of Pork with veggies and baked apple pudding for dinner. The next morning we decided to sleep-in, so no game walk - but Gloria had made a great breakfast, afterwhich we packed up and Brightman took us back to the gate and our vehicles, from where we departed for a picnic site below the dam-wall for our Mothers day picnic - with fresh bread I had baked the previous night. After lunch we departed for our respective homes, relaxed and refreshed! I had a past pupil of mine, Glenn, look after Didi during my weekend away.
On returning to home, I then departed for the Tourist Indaba in Durban and met with my car hire company who were hosting an Awards Gala evening - we departed for the Valley of a Thousand Hills - which is a traditional Zulu area dotted with thousands of Zulu homesteads, both old traditional and modern. We arrived at the PheZulu and Crocodile park - where we were entertained to some Zulu dancing, then a nocturnal tour of the Croc ponds and then a traditional South African potjiekos dinner. During the course of the dinner, African Bundu Safaris was awarded a trophy for "Top Achiever for 1998/9" on a National level. This was in recognition for the outstanding service we have provided to our clients with car rentals - a fine achievement and we are proud of it. The trophy is a piece of African art ( a miniature baobab tree) mounted on a plaque with the appropriate wording. We hope to obtain it again next year! Out of all the car rental companies in South Africa, there is no other company that comes close to matching our prices or service. We have each car personally delivered with a friendly staff member to hand you the keys and explain everything, our rates include unlimited distance and a very reduced insurance excess, with an option of even taking out additional insurance. All our cars are less than 12 months old and we have 7 offices nationwide with another 2 opening soon. Unfortunately we do not have offices across the borders, though you can take our cars into Zimbabwe, Botswana and Namibia if you wish and very often this works out cheaper than hiring from our other two companies we rent from in those countries.
Last weekend another friend, Karsten, and I went on a hike down the Wild Coast. Rowan was coming, but at the last minute chickened out - good friend hey! Well, Karsten and I had a great time. We hiked along the beach for about an hour until we got to our first river to cross - luckily Karsten was hiking barefoot and I only had my Rocky Sandals on, so it was a simple case of taking backpack off and lifting onto our heads and then wading across the river - real Camel-Adventure style! After another hour along the beach we stopped for lunch sitting under some wild palm trees, before continuing for another 2 hours to our night stop - ontop of a sand dune with a the blue sea to the east and a tranquil lagoon to the west. After a swim, we lit a fire and spent the night chatting around the flames after devouring a good steak!
The beautiful sunrise was followed by breakfast and then back along the beach - except the tide had now come in so the hard sand we walked on early had disappeared! The 2 rivers we had to cross were more challenging but the scenery was as spectacular as ever. BUT, my legs that night and the following day - boy-oh-boy - my calf muscles were telling me we should have waited for low tide and the harder sand!
Last night I attended Glenn's Springbok Scout badge presentation at a campfire he ran. It was a very pleasant evening and a great fire. It was good to sing some of those old campfire songs and at a well organised campfire. Well done Glenn!
For the future, there are still some vacancies for the Flower Tours to the Namaqualand in August and September. The dates and prices are on the previous issue of Dean's Diary as are the details about the Rocks & Stars Quad bike safari in Botswana. (Quad bikes are motorised 4 wheel bikes which seat two people). Our Millennium luxury safari from Vic Falls to Maun still has vacancies so contact me quickly as there are only a few places left. My colleague in Kenya has a number of safaris including Mount Kilimanjaro, Mount Kenya, the Masai Mara and hot air balloon trips all over the Millennium period - so shout if you are interested for further details. I still have a couple of spaces left on the popular Orange River rafting expedition over the Millennium period - either from 27 to 31 December or 1 Jan to 5 Jan - with both groups having a great party in the 31st to see the new century in.
Just a reminder to those adventurous travellers to South Africa - we have coastal and long distance cruises available on clean cargo ships - they have cabins for 4 to 12 passengers and offer an alternative way to travel. There are regular departures from the UK, the USA and the Far East, plus weekly sailing's up and down our coast from Durban to Cape Town. Full details on the previous edition of Dean's Diary.
I had a phonecall from Ruth last week. She and her partner are on a self-drive through part of South Africa and were in Umhlanga Rocks on their way to the Drakensberg mountains and she just phoned to say hi and thanks for all we had done for them - really nice when our clients take the trouble on their holiday to drop us a line - it means so much to us.
Kyle and his wife are also here in SA, in fact as I am writing this, they are enjoying Vic Falls, having spent time along the Garden Route and The Palace at Sun City. Floyd was out from Australia early this month and spent 5 days in Kruger Park until his girlfriend arrived - we are hoping to hear from Floyd and Kyle on their returns about how their trips went.
As mentioned last month, we deal with many enquiries daily and it is such a pleasure to receive an enquiry when the person has forwarded so much detail. What is very disappointing is when we spend hours and I mean many hours over a 2 to 6 week period putting together itineraries and forwarding a lot of information only to not hear from the person again. These sort of folks have e-mailed 5 or 10 other companies and got them to do all the same work for them. Surely after the first or 2nd e-mail they could have eliminated the companies they did not want to deal with and told them so politely. We will e-mail that person until they respond - we believe everyone has manners, just some need to be reminded occasionally. It is amazing the variety of excuses we receive after our final e-mail is sent to them!!
I have mentioned in great detail in previous issues of Dean's Diary how you can check on our credentials and referrals - follow the links to my Tripod site and also our Guestbook. Please refer back to get our explanations.
We do not have fancy glossy brochures - we are a company with modern thinking, methods and operation - we deal with 98% of our clients via e-mail. Therefore all our information is e-mailed - we do not post, fax or telephone information to the USA, UK, Australia or wherever - this only puts our expenses up and this would mean our tariffs go up. For payments we accept bank transfers and credit card transactions, again to keep the costs down, we do have a credit card surcharge in certain cases. Another point - I do not offer careers or jobs in my company - I still get people asking - sorry.
On the 2 June, we are having our first elections since Nelson Mandela came into power as our President. He is retiring from politics, having achieved his goals and we wish him well. By the time you read this, the elections would be over and the new leader would have been decided (we all presume it is Thabo Mbeki). I can only pray that it will be a calm and peaceful election and not full of fault and fraud. Unfortunately there are always some rotten apples in the basket and I also hope that we do not have the ANC winning a two-thirds majority as they can then change the constitution - but hopefully they won't make too many changes.
During June, I have a 5 day safari with John and his family to the Hluhluwe-Umfolosi game reserve, followed by a 3 day to Umfolosi with Nik and Stuart and then an educational Tour with some other Tour Operators for 3 days through Zululand, then it is my birthday, so shall be going to my brothers farm to celebrate it with my god-daughter and also her brother as we are all about the same date, and then when I return, I have an 11 day birding safari to a number of Zululand reserves with Karl, Bill and Gerald - so a busy June month. Good luck Alice - please be patient folks - there is only one person in the office then!
The big news over this last month has been the Slide Show I have put on my website - 80% of the photos I took myself and the remaining ones have been scanned - hence the quality difference - it is 1.4Mb in size so takes a while to download - but it shows a good cross section of our country and the accommodation my safaris use.
The next biggest (actually smallest) news is the arrival of Espi - she arrived last week as the promised new companion and playmate for Didi. Espi is a cross Jack Russell...with a long tail. She is 4 months old and really loveable. She and Didi have so much fun running around the yard, the office, the house and she is learning the house rules quickly. Next week I shall venture around the neighbourhood with both of them - just to orientate her a bit better! She loves driving in the car and jumping onto my lap or any chair in sight!
I had a phonecall from my sister today - she drove from her small town of Kestel to Johannesburg to spend the weekend with her friend and despite having an alarm plus the required gear-lock in her car, she woke up in the morning without a car - it had been stolen!! A common occurrence in Johannesburg unfortunately. The worst news is that she still owed the bank about R16 000 on it and she suspects the insurance company will be only paying her out R16 000 -so she ends up with nothing!! She is a nurse so it takes ages to try and save up for a car - she lives 42 kms away from her work so she has a major problem now. Such a pity we live in such an environment. Our rented cars are also being stolen from Johannesburg airport despite having 'security' there, so different measures are now being taken to secure our cars after our clients return them.
Well that's all my news for now. Hope to hear from you soon. Pass on the word about African Bundu Safaris - the company to deal with for your next Southern Africa adventure.
All the best
Dean
Manager - African Bundu Safaris cc.Click here to view the previous edition of Dean's Diary
