African Safari

Posted on January 29, 2014 by robandlinds

We entire drive towards Queen Elizabeth National Park was very pretty with lush green rolling hills and gorgeous houses (surprisingly)! We saw several huge tea plantations which were also beautiful. As we approached the park, we saw elephants off the road.

The bush lodge was pretty awesome and a step up from what we had experienced in Makondo; individual huts with screen walls and all over looked the river full of hippos. Can you imagine? We were able to see hippos from our balcony!! You could hear them splashing and making a barking noise all night. We were told not to leave the hut after dark unless we had a guide. The hippos and buffalo walk through the huts at night and can be dangerous.

We had dinner under the stars and by a campfire – just an amazing setting with a 4 course meal with lamb chops for the main. Stunning place to stay for a few nights!

The highlight of the morning safari was a lone make lion that we were able to get really close to. We took a boat cruise for part of the day that got us really close to tons of hippos, water buffalo, crocs, and many different kinds of birds. From the boat safari, our driver (Francis) picked us up from the boat safari and took us directly to or evening game drive.

The goal was simple, more lions. We drove back to the spot where we saw the lone male and spotted a kob that appeared to be under distress. Its ears were perked up and for some reason it kept sprinting away (Francis told us this was a sign that a lion or leopard was nearby). Both my mom and our driver agreed that something was wrong (check out the video here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HgTvdupwsG8&feature=youtu.be).

Francis took the land rover off road (which can be an $150 fine if caught) to see if we could find what was bothering the kob. After driving around for a few minutes a leopard popped out from a bush right in front of us! It ran in front for a bit before going into a huge bush where it remained. Leopards are pretty rare and according to Francis, he has only seen them once or twice per year. We were lucky because Linds did a great job in getting a picture during all the panic (AND with a point-n-shoot!).

Later, we followed another jeep who had found a pride of lions. We were able to get close and had a solid 20-30 minutes of watching the female lions. In total, there were about 8-10 including cubs. We had a very successful safari that brought us water buffalo, kob, fish eagle ( and tons of other birds), monitor lizards, water buck, warthogs, hippos, crocs, baboons, verbet monkey, elephants, lions and the leopard. We saw four of the “big five” (elephant, leopard, lion, buffalo, rino), missing only the rino.

We started off the day the 10-hour drive to Kisoro with another game drive – this time on the opposite side of Queen Elizabeth National Park. After searching for about an hour, we found 5-6 male and female lions sleeping in a fig tree, very abnormal behavior for a lion. They are beautiful creatures!

We knew we had a long day of driving ahead but didn’t know we would be going under 30 mph most of the way on a rough 4WD road. The scenery was spectacular, steep jungle mountains, more tea plantations, but at this point we were unsure the drive was worth 10 hours in the car eating dust. In fact, the roads were so narrow that we almost had a head-on collision with another car. He was speeding around the corner and was clearly too far over on our side. Luckily, our overly cautious driver was going much slower and managed to miss the driver by inches. We finally made it to our hotel by 5:45, enough time for a shower, dinner, then early bed for our 6:00 am departure for the gorilla trek.

Uganda – Makondo

Posted on January 23, 2014 by robandlinds

It was so exciting having Maria join us for this part of the trip – our very own personal tour guide! We spent a few days in Entebbe checking out the botanic gardens before driving 4 hours to Makondo.

During one of the mornings in Makondo, we went for a morning jog. We found out quickly what it’s like to be minorities. Many of the children were running after us yelling “Muzungo, Muzungo!” which means white person in Swahili. To them, it seems odd to see someone wasting energy by running around. In fact, we even had someone yell, “Are you OK?” thinking we were running from someone or something.

These people will walk upwards of 10KM per day – e.g. filling up jugs of water in the nearby waterhole or picking stalks of maze on their property to sell. Even to Sunday mass — which started at 7:15AM — women and children walked 6KM one way! We understood now why the people of Mukondo were starring as we ran by.

Almost every night during our trip, we walked up to the farm to have dinner. This was where the volunteers (Kris and Dean) and the Father’s slept. According to Dean, they were very happy to have us as guests because their feast during our visit consisted of much more meat and fish. A typical lunch or dinner includes rice, matoke, posho and peanut sauce with pineapple and mango for dessert. Even this would be considered a feast for most families. Matoke is generally served at every meal as it’s readily available.

The taste is… well… quite bland. Kris — one of the volunteers — recommended that we try it with peanut sauce and I was pleasantly surprised at how good that tasted! Posho has a similar bland taste — think clumpy or dried cream of wheat (picture above). I also enjoyed posho with the peanut sauce. Another favorite of the people is mangoes! Christine and Joseph (a few of the students from St. Denis) gave us a whole box of them! And Bizimungu (student from St. Denis) sent us home with 2 pineapples. Considering mangoes cost about $3 each in the states, this was a very nice gesture. We shared the box with several others and it was delicious!!

It seemed everywhere we went, Maria was somewhat of a celebrity. During one of our first days, she took us around to show the projects Into Your Hands was working on; which also included the completed classrooms and buildings Maria raised money for over the years. The library, the new dormitory (“The Evergreen Room”), the bore hole (or the local water pump), and several classrooms including “THE MARIA CAMP HALL”. She IS famous!! This was the first building she got involved with back in 1999.. It’s amazing to see all the work she’s done over the years with Into Your Hands and her local Rotary Club.

We even had the privilege of providing a helping hand by cleaning the classrooms before school started back up again (the following Monday).

Another project Into Your Hands has been working on is “send a piglet home”. They will provide the basic materials for the pigs home (e.g. bricks), 2 months supply of food for the pig and the pig itself. In return, the family must give back 2 small piglets once the mother has her first litter (which will be distributed to other families). Subsequently, the families will make money off of selling the piglets to other families, providing income for the child to attend school. It’s a wonderful program that has worked well in the past. Below is a picture of a family we met during our stay..

Into Your Hands also provides scholarships for students. One of those students is Bizimungu — a 19-year-old from Rwanda, who has moved to Uganda with his 3 siblings and parents (picture below). He completed his last year of secondary school (equivalent of a high school degree) and will be filling out college applications soon. We had the privilege of spending time with him. He seems to have his priorities straight and even better, he’s paving a path for his younger siblings to follow. It’s just amazing to see his progress since he started the program 6 years ago..

A day in the life of a Ugandan is quite different than the average American. It’s typical to find a family of 10 kids with a father who is no longer around (or spending his days with other males playing cards and drinking games). The kids are needed to help around the house, to gather food from the garden for dinner, to fetch fresh water from the water well and even look after younger siblings. This leaves little time for an education.

It was such a humbling experience for us. We had to wash our own clothes by hand, conserve water (which means no long or hot showers), cook our food and wash our dishes, and find ways to entertain ourselves (without electricity – in some cases – and no TV). The experience enabled us to truly start appreciating the small things in life again. Absolutley wonderful experience!

Knysna, South Africa

Posted on January 16, 2014 by robandlinds

The main task for the day was making the 5.5 hour journey to Knysna on the Garden Route. After checking out early we decided to swing by the famous botanic garden, Kristenbosch (see pictures above). It was pretty spectacular and lived up to the hype. It’s located on the slope of Table Mountain and more plant species than I could begin to imagine – certainly a worthwhile stop before the drive. Most of the drive was over pretty dry rolling hills, saw a few ostrich along the way but not much else out there. Once we got back on the coast we stopped at Mossel Bay – not the best town and we were hoping Knysna wasn’t similar!

Luckily, Knysna was nothing like Mossel Bay. Once we passed Mossel Bay the vegetation changed (big trees and much greener) you could now see why it was called the Garden Route. Knysna is located on a massive lagoon, surrounded by mountains and a narrow gap called the heads where the ocean opened up. There were also a few islands on the lagoon where houses and restaurants were built. After checking in to our apartment where we spent the next 4 nights, we made our way to a recommendation for dinner on one of the islands. Another amazing location for dinner, right on the water in time for sunset.

After only catching a glimpse of the town the evening before, we decided to spend the day in Knysna. We drove out to both the East and West heads. There were tons of jelly fish that washed up on the beach as well as potential shark sightings – this made for a quick swim in the shallow water! Still, the beach was stunning. There was another spectacular sunset that evening and we couldn’t stop taking pictures because it kept getting better and better. It’s probably one of the best I have ever seen (and didn’t think I would say that so soon after the Table Mountain sunset)!

On our list of places to see on the garden route was Plettenberg Bay, only 20 minutes up the road from Knysna. We were given a recommendation from the apartment owner to hike around Robberg Point. Robberg is the Afrikaans word for seal and we soon fount out why it was called Seal Point. The loop took us up and down on a very picturesque peninsula and after about 30 minutes of walking we saw a massive seal colony (no wonder sharks like it around here). There must have been thousands of them and even though we were way up above we could hear and smell them. Again, amazing views.

The owner of the Bed and Breakfast we stayed at was so nice! In fact, after 20 minutes of chitchatting he decided to join Rob on the golf course (30 minutes outside of Knysna). According to Rob, it was the “best golf course I’ve ever played on”.. I’ll take his word for it because the views were absolutely stunning. The owner also set me up with a day at the spa — an easy offer to accept! It was needed after 5-6 days of non-stop trekking.

On our way towards the Cape Town International Airport, we were able to spend a few evenings in wine country – in a small town called Stellenbosch. Bed and Breakfasts seem to be fairly popular and it’s one of our favorite ways to travel – this place was situated in the heart of wine country with some amazing views. Why not enjoy a few bottles of wine on our balcony (pic taken below)?? After another recommendation from our friend Innes, we spent the evening at Moyo – a very traditional African restaurant where the staff paints your faces upon arriving, perform African dances, and serve you like the king! And the traditional African food was just as good.

Cape Town

Posted on January 15, 2014 by robandlinds

We left our apartment in Neutral Bay at 12:45PM Sydney time on Saturday and didn’t arrive at the hotel in Cape Town until 7PM Sydney time on Sunday (or 10AM local time) – over 30 hours worth of traveling! All in all, the trip went smoothly with the exception of a crying infant on the flight from Singapore to Joberg. And surprisingly, we weren’t too jet lagged on Sunday. In fact, we made the hike up to Lion’s Head that afternoon.

Cape Town has some unbelievable views – as can be seen during our hike up Lions Head. The hike took us two hours round trip and actually had some really steep parts where we had to scramble. It was worth it though as the 360 degree views were amazing. We decided to walk all the way back to the hotel after, which allowed us to see more of the city, and took another hour or so.

We ended the evening early but made it to Long Street for a beer and dinner. Long street is know as the main strip for night life, bars, clubs, etc. It was pretty dead since it was Sunday but still had a nice meal and cheap food/beer on a rooftop bar (there seemed to be more rooftop / second story bars and restaurants than there were on the main floor! Made for some fun pictures!!). Rob tried his first local beer called Stellenbach Lager and thought it was good!!

The next day – it was clear – the priority was the Broncos playoff game. Before leaving Australia, Rob made sure he knew exactly what time the Broncos would play and where we’d be. Luckily, we weren’t in the air but Rob insisted on waking up in the middle of the night to game-cast the game (the hotel didn’t have the game on so the best we could do is watch via game cast). Still, he was able to make the 5:30AM wake up call for our shark cage dive at Gansbaai – 2 1/2 hours southeast of the city. On the trek, we chatted with an English bloke who told us it was his second time in 3 days doing the dive (apparently, the first day wasn’t all the great in terms of visibility). This made me a bit worried but the day did little to disappoint.

Rob and I volunteered to dive first (for one – I was hoping to get it over with!) and, turns out, we were probably the group to stay in the water longest. There were 8 people in the cage at one time. As the instructor showed us (see pic above), we had to hold our breath when they yelled “Get down, get down!” and we had to make sure we grabbed the handle below. The crew would hang the bait right in front of the cage so the shark would swim right in front of us!

– Water temp: 17.8 C
– Temp outside: 26 C with high winds – made for rough seas (and a few sickies on the boat – UGH!!!)
– 4 groups of 8 people in the cage + 5-6 crew on board
– Of those 32 divers, 4 decided against going in!

Rob decided to go in twice and the second time was one of the best of the day! There two or three times when the sharks jumped out of the water right in front of him. Then the last pass of the day, the guide lead a shark right to the cage with the tuna head. The shark attacked the tuna head against the cage literally 4 inches from my (Rob) face. What a rush! Linds got a video here: http://youtu.be/ka8YtYWwJlQ. Here is another video while I was in the cage: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nWaTHYURThQ&feature=youtu.be.

South Africa is know for their meat selection and quality so later that evening we went to one of the top steak houses in town, The City Grill, at the Water Front. The Water Front is a really nice area on the water with tons of restaurants, bars, etc. Touristy but also very nice.

The meal didn’t disappoint and had some interesting tastings… ostrich, crocodile, venison sausage, chicken, springbok, and warthog. Our unanimous favorite was…ostrich?? It was really good and we did not expect ostrich to taste like that. We are loving the prices here especially after three years of Sydney prices. Beers are around $2-3, a bottle of wine at the nice restaurant was $11 and most meals about $5-$8.

Of course we couldn’t fly to South Africa without paying our respects to Nelson Mandela. We caught the 9am ferry to the famous Robben Island where Nelson Mandela was held as a political prisoner for 18 of his 27 years of his imprisonment. A 30 minute ferry ride took us from the Water Front to the island where we took a bus tour of the island followed by a tour inside the prison by a former inmate. The climax of the tour was seeing Mandela’s tiny cell where he spent 18 years of his life.

We also saw the limestone mine where they were forced to work doing meaningless tasks, moving rock piles from one side to another and back again. A lot of the prisoners had severe eye issues from working in the sun without any protection, primarily due to the reflection from the bright white rocks. Mandela had to have several eye operations after he was released and his tear ducts could no longer produce tears.

We learned a lot on the tour about Mandela, the Apartheid, and the history of South Africa in general. It helps that we are also listening to Mandela’s autobiography “A Long Walk to Freedom”. It is very easy to recognize how well he was loved. Considering he passed away last month (Dec 2013), the city has his name and picture everywhere. He comes up in most conversations with the locals – he was and is clearly loved by his country.

In the afternoon we decided to hike up Table Mountain, catch sunset, then take the cable car down. Table Mountain rises 3,500 feet directly above Cape Town and the hike was only 2km but with a 2,000 ft elevation gain. So basically straight up…the views from the top far exceeded my expectations and it was easy to see why this is one of the 7 natural wonders of the world. On the top we met two locals and talked to them for a good 20-30 minutes. They gave us a lot of good suggestions for Cape Town, Cape Point, and Stellenbosh. The sunset was easily the best I can remember with nearly 360 degrees of water surrounding us (we sat on a rock overlooking Camps Bay – see pic above). I was a little uneasy taking the cable car down, for part of it we were probably 1,000 feet off the ground but the view of the city at night was worth it.

**CAPE POINT**

One of the main attractions near by is Cape Point and the Cape of Good Hope. First stop was Camp Bay (viewed from on top of Table Mtn in the pictures above), a 15 min drive from Cape Town on the other side of Lions Head. It was an amazing beach with the mountains right behind us. From there we took the very scenic drive towards Cape Point to Boulders Beach, home to the largest colony of the endangered African Penguins. We were able to get up-close-and-personal as shown in the pic I got of Linds.

(Unfortunately we had to take our camera in to get fixed so we didn’t take too many pictures.. Some are from the iPhone or GoPro)

Another 30 minutes and we arrived at Cape Point and the Cape of Good Hope. The point represents the convergence of the warmer Indian Ocean currents with the colder Atlantic Ocean currents. However, we learned that this is not where the two oceans meet. That happens at the southernmost point of Africa, another 3 hours east. The Cape of Good Hope was a landmark early explorers used as they made their way around Africa. Once they hit the Cape of Good Hope they knew they were starting to head east. We did see a few NEW animal sightings!! Several baboons, a family of ostrich, and a lone elder.

We finished the day at Kalk Bay where we had dinner at Harbour House, one of the best seafood places in the Cape Town area. The best part was the location, we were right on the water and had an amazing ocean view at sunset.

Cape Town is such an amazing city! We HIGHLY recommend it to family and friends — there’s so much to do and see, we just didn’t have enough time to do it all!! All-in-all, we both agreed it’s one of our favorite (or favourite) cities we’ve visited to date :)!

And we’re OFF!

Posted on January 9, 2014 by robandlinds

We spent one of the last few nights with some of our best friends in Sydney! Even better, our good friends Tom and Lynne (and Eliza!) were able to join in on the fun. My last day at work was Thursday – so several of my colleagues came out for a drink (see pic above) – then we met up with our other friends at (where else??) The Lord Nelson Brewery Hotel in the Rocks – a perfect place to start the farewell celebrations.

It was a sad day and extremely tough saying goodbye to such an amazing group of people, BUT we both know that we WILL be back someday soon and hope to have many of our Australian/British friends come visit us! Thanks again to all those who were able to come out for a farewell drink (unfortunately, I took out my camera a bit late and didn’t get one of everyone who was there…).

Sydney, Australia is certainly a city that will be greatly missed!

Rob and Linds

Travel the World (and do some other stuff along the way)

Monthly Archives: January 2014