Sunday, May 30, 2010

Another tour ends

Left here (Cape Town) on 8th May at 06:30 to drive up to Jo'burg. I had a 6 speed 2.5 Kombi (diesel) as the tour vehicle. The trip up was uneventful and I made it to Bloemfontein by just before 18:00, no rush just a casual drive. The next morning I carried on to Jo'burg, leaving the hotel at about 09:30 and arriving at my Guest-house at around 13:15. I could not book-in as they were only expecting me at 17:00,(being Mothers Day, the family was having a braai (barbecue)) so I left the vehicle in the parking area and Andrew (my son) came to pick me up for some lunch in Rosebank.

Sunday night is the official start of the tour with a welcome dinner at a set venue. Here we meet the guests and generally try to get a feeling of the group. This time I had a group of 5, a British couple from London/Gillford and 3 Irish (a couple and their friend) form County Curlow.

The laughter and quips at dinner set the tone for the tour, it was a whole lot of fun with jokes, funny stories and ribbing the whole time, from early morning to late at night.

Monday morning we set off in perfect weather, clear blue sky's and just a few clouds to make the photographs interesting. On the way to Mpumalanga there was a change in the weather and the "good old Transvaal" thunderstorms could be seen brewing to the east. Most of the time we only saw the storms off in the distance or came across wet areas in the road where they had passed but near Belfast we went through one. The temperature dropped the sky went dark grey with thunder and lightning all around us, then the rain started, big drops hit the windscreen and splattered, it got more intense until I could only see about 2 meters in front. This lasted for about 5 minutes and the rain got lighter, all of a sudden we were out of the storm which continued on its path away to the south east.

After the storm the sky cleared a bit but we could see more clouds brewing to the west. As we got to the top of Long Tom Pass the sunset was unbelievable, turquoise blue sky on the horizon, fluffy clouds turning yellow in the dying rays of the sun and the foreboding dark grey of the storm clouds. If I had been on my own I would have stopped for a photograph, but none of the guests were interested in sunsets, pity!

A day later the group was on a game drive in the Kruger and the first sighting of any interest was a leopard walking up the road at about 06:30 in the morning. That set the tone and they saw all of the BIG 5 by lunch time.

Our next "fun" part was on arrival in Durban at uShaka Marine World. There was the threat of rain all the way   down from Mkuzi, as we get to within 2 blocks of the parking area the heavens opens up with a deluge of gigantic proportions, nothing to do but sit and wait it out. A break in the rain comes so we hop out og the vehicle and area making out way to the entrance when the heavens opened up again and we all got soaking wet.

These are the moments that make the fun parts of the tour, when the guests laugh at themselves and each other.

Another wonderful time was at Storms River Mouth, Tsitsikamma. I was walking with the Irish, as John & Hazel had decided they would do their own thing for an hour, on the board walk to to swing bridge when a Knysna Turaco flew past and landed on a vine about 2 meters away from us where all were able to take some amazing photos.

All the way along we had incidents of fun and laughter with everybody enjoying themselves and appreciating a great tour.

My next tour is only after the Soccer World Cup, but I am working during the tournament.............