Follow the sun

It’s been awhile since I last wrote, and no that is not because I was eaten alive by mosquitoes. There actually haven’t been as many mosquitoes now that it’s getting closer to winter. There aren’t as many guests either (not that the two are related ;). April was a busy month with both guests at the lodge and horse rides but now we have two days where there are no guests. It is really quiet around here, especially at night. The animals have been acting a bit strange as well. We are all sleeping with radios next to our bed so we can inform each other when we hear something. It is making me a little paranoid to be honest. Yesterday evening I thought I heard gunshots while it was actually just Nathan slamming his car door shut..

Last week (or the week before? I can’t keep track of time) we went on another beach trip. This time to 9 mile beach (not to be confused with green mile ;). To get there, we had to drive over a sand road for about an hour. It sure was an experience, bouncing around in the car, with seven people in one vehicle. I think some of us might have gotten a mild concussion that day ;). The beach was worth the trip though, it was beautiful. It was very secluded so we had it to ourselves for most of the day. The waves were pretty strong though, after every wave I had to check if my bikini was still in place. On the way back I got to drive, I’m still not sure whether that was because people actually trusted my driving or just didn’t want to be the designated driver. It was my first time driving on the left side of the road (for longer than five minutes) but I got everyone home in one piece. We even saw a rhino on our drive home, quite surprising considering there was a party going on in the back seat and they could probably hear us coming from miles away.

Yvette, Rick, Wesley and I also did another trip into the park, the Imfolozi side this time. We left at 5.30am because it’s a bit of a drive. Unfortunately we had had a party the night before, which Yvette and I left quite early, but *some people* had only had 2.5 hours of sleep. Thanks again Wesley for not crashing the car and Rick for grabbing the wheel every once in awhile ;) We saw a lot of animals (a group of zebra that seemed to be following us around) but sadly no wild dogs (the one animal I still really want to see in the wild) or lions and leopards for that matter. I did see a giraffe! That made me ridiculously happy as I hadn’t seen one here yet. Also more rhino’s and a lot of elephants (in the middle of the road..). The scenery that side was great though! The only downside of that part of the park was that there was no restaurant so we had to survive on cookies that day :P

Since we were used to getting up early anyways we decided to do a sunrise ride with the horses the next morning. This time we got up at 4.30am to get the horses ready and ride out to False Bay before 6.15am. We arrived just in time to see the sun rising above the mountains in the distance and then disappearing again behind a cloud.. We did see the sun rise a second time that morning as it came out from behind the clouds ;) It was beautiful, really the perfect spot to watch and the horses were great even though it was still dark out when we left. Thanks again for getting up that early Yvette and Wesley! At least we got loads of beautiful photos ;) Hopefully we can offer these rides to guests in the future as well.

Sadly, Yvette, Rick and Wesley went back home last week. It was great meeting you guys, see you again here next year?!