It is just over a fortnight since we met Laura, Jonathon, Billy and Henry at Kimberley airport and much has happened since then, most happily. We watched them walk across the tarmac to the smart new airport buildings and enter, fully in our view as there are no passport or customs checks. The glass door between us slid open and we could hug while they still awaited their luggage. Billy's face was puzzled for a while but soon broke into a lovely broad grin of recognition. Occasional skype video calls have helped keep our faces familiar.
Every grandparent no doubt thinks their latest grandchild is amazing. We certainly do; Billy wonders at everything, has a real sense of fun and curiosity, rarely grizzles and is quite simply adorable. So although we were so glad to see all of them it was Billy who just made the holiday for us. I travelled in the their car, sitting with Billy in the back so as to maximize my time with him.
Jonathon has described their first week so well and I will fail to write about all that happened since then but briefly, while they went off south for 4 days on their own, we took Henry and Alastair to a nature reserve overnight at Gariep. We were able to do a fascinating tour of the big dam, the biggest in SA, and began to understand the differences between flood protection, maintaining river flow and controlling the silt flow. Our resort by the lake behind gave us a swimming pool and walks as well as the chance to braai, albeit with a struggle as a storm was starting. Alastair is a real expert these days and Henry much enjoyed his company.
We returned in time for the Mothers' Union's fund-raising pancake sale and did our bit cooking pancakes in the church hall. The following day was Ash Wednesday and the 6pm service was a big, solemn, well-attended occasion. We left at 5am next day, with Henry, to drive south to Nature's Valley on the Garden Route where we met up with Laura and family and had 2 nights at a lovely self-catering place on a farm. It was near the beach below, had views of the mountains behind and apart from the cloudy, sometimes wet weather was ideal for our last days together.
Nearby was an elephant sanctuary where we walked 'holding hands/trunk' with an elephant, rescued from the wild and being prepared to be returned. The soft skin behind the ears, which are flapped to cool the animal, was especially intriguing, as was inside the mouth. Billy was especially mesmerized but we all were.
Swimming was limited both by the weather and the size of the waves on the Indian Ocean. As Laura later commented it was sobering to think that as we watched the huge walls of water pounding in, she later realised it was at the time of the Japanese tsunami.
At Nature's Valley there is a lovely calm lagoon behind the beach where some swam, and at Plettenberg Bay similarly. There the current of the incoming tide was so strong it was hard to move aginst it so swimming was limited. As we later played in the lovely white sand, Tom building a ball-run sand castle for Billy, a man missing one leg walked past, jumped into his canoe and sped across the lagoon. A conversation with a later passer-by confirmed Jonathon's suspicion that a shark had removed one leg. It was the only known attack at that resort some many years ago but it was another sobering moment.
After a rather tearful farewell at George airport, Tom and I drove eastwards along the beautiful coast into sunshine and to Addo where there is a vast nature reserve famous for elephants. We had some wonderful watching of elephants in Addo National Park as well as most of the other big game at a private reserve close by. One large group of about 50 elephants had a reddish colour which was the result of cooling themselves by splashing in the reddish mud pools. From the safety of our car we had amazing views.
At Schotia Game Reserve you are driven in special raised landrovers across rough tracks to view the animals over a period of about 5 hours, with a tea and supper break in different safe locations. Our experienced driver knew where he was likely to find what we had come to see – white rhinos, hippos, crocodile (both in or beside a large pool), zebra, giraffe, warthogs, various buck and most amazing of all lions. We saw close by a lioness with five cubs, 4 months old, playing nearby just by our truck. Up the slope were a group of four 2 year-olds, two male, two female. In the bigger reserves they would go off once their mother had another litter but here with more limited space they stayed nearby for safety. Two huge males were visible high up on the hillside. The guide told us how they become so used to the twice-daily drives that they are unfazed but if he or anyone got down on the ground at their level they would feel threatened and would attack, with devastating force. We had never seen lions in the wild, and this is wild in that they are never fed but have to hunt, mostly at night, from whatever is in the reserve. Some species survive, others don't. Our night drive sadly didn't come across a kill, nor the two hippos who graze with their wide jaws on the meadows at night. But the whole thing was very special and memorable.
The long drive home, about 6 hours driving, was broken by stopping at Graaf Reinet, a lovely town with many 19thC buildings and several museums. It appears to be a bigger more cultural centre and we would have enjoyed staying there. Nearby at the Camdeboo National Park we drove high up a mountain to get spectacular views of the surrounding mountainous Karroo and nearby of huge reddish dolerite pillars and the Valley of Desolation a gash in this huge geological feature. Tom and I share an interest in trying to work out something of the geological past, albeit inadequately.
And so home, to Alastair's final week with us, catching up on things domestic and parochial.
(I managed one photo at last but something then refused to play ball. My laptop has been getting very slow so Alastair has helped me clear some space and perhaps it is a little faster - it is our lifeline and very precious.)
