Adventures of an Expat in South Africa
Rietvlei Nature Reserve is located right next to Pretoria within easy reach for anyone living in Gauteng. It's lake is a popular windsurfing spot, something you normally wouldn't think of doing on the Highveld. It's also a popular bird watcher's destination, and it has a lion enclosure. It may not live up to the big South African game reserves but makes for a nice day trip.
For expats moving to South Africa, the list of scary things you're led to believe will happen to you there is long and grisly. Smash-n-grabs, carjackings, hacked off limbs - you will find dire warnings of all of those when searching the Internet. So we thought you might enjoy a humorous break from the gruesome. Nevertheless a warning: contains disturbing pictures!
For some reason I’ve had a succession of hadeda stories land in my inbox this week. First there was Heather’s story on 2Summers about her beautiful new hadeda tattoo. I’m not one ...
Lions have been much in the news lately, as in the story of the American tourist who was killed by a lion in Johannesburg’s Lion Park, and more recently the killing of Zimbabwe’s beloved Cecil the Lion by an American trophy hunter.
It came as no surprise to me to witness the public shaming ...
What a privilege to have been allowed such close-up views of these magnificent beasts! But how much longer will they roam the Earth, if rhino poaching in South Africa alone continues at a clip of one rhino killed every eight hours? It is such a shame. And perhaps only shame, or rather shaming, of the people buying rhino horn can turn back the dial.
Maurice Sendak, the legendary children’s book writer and illustrator, once said that he modeled all the characters of his “Wild Things” after relatives – aunts and uncles who scared him as a child.
I was recently filing through the troves of safari pictures I amassed during ...
Our destination was Cradle Nature Reserve. Joburgers might know it's there, but I had never heard of it, even though it wasn't much more than half an hour from our house. The thing is, there is a lot of stuff out there. What's known as the Cradle of Humankind is brimming with hotels, inns, restaurants, B&Bs, and small safari parks, all set in the most picturesque landscape you can imagine.
So how many safaris have we been on with our kids here in Africa? Three? Four? Now we go on the first one WITHOUT kids, and what should we get to see the very first afternoon at Banoka Bush Camp?
Mating lions. In fact, it’s the first time we’ve seen anything mate in the wild. If you don’t count the odd dragon flies over our pool.How cool would that have been for the kids, I ask you? And, more importantly ...
What is the one thing a husband is useful having around the house for? I mean the truly most important thing?
To fix things that aren’t working, of course. And possibly to deal with any wildlife in the house.
Leave it to my husband to have an uncanny sixth sense enabling him to disappear anytime ...
When the call came last Sunday evening, we dropped everything, dinner dishes scattered and house in disarray, and made for a friend’s house. She’s a vet, and a colleague of hers was staying over with a four-day old lion cub in his care. Which we could come and pet.
That’s what I love ...