On Safari!

Yesterday we took a bus to the oldest game park in South Africa the Hluhluwe Imfolozi national park - established in 1895. It was an early 7am start as the park is 2 hours drive from Richards Bay. When we arrived at the park small groups of us transferred to safari jeeps. The jeep took us along some tarmac roads then off road to spot the wild game. We saw Elephants, Giraffes, Zebra, Antelope, Impala, Crocodile, Blue Wildebeest, Rhinoceros, Buffalo and Warthog. In addition the birds we saw were brightly coloured like butterflies. We saw a dung beetle rolling a large ball of dung along the road as we drove past! The sound in the park was often one of crickets making a loud buzzing noise. Much louder than the cicadas we often hear in the Caribbean. At mid day the jeep stoped at the Hilltop Restaurant where we enjoyed a very cheap lunch of fish and chips. Since we arrived we have been amazed at how cheap it is to eat out. Our bill for fish and chips twice plus cheesecake for Peter and 2 beers plus water was 183 Rand which is about £13. The first night we arrived we ate fish and chips at the yacht club for £3 each!! It was a long day with the bus taking us back to the Marina around 4pm. Just in time to get a hot shower (it was quite cool in the morning as the clouds hung over the mountains and the jeep was open sided!) and relax before dinner with Phil & Andrea in the Yacht Club - again good cheap food - Steak and chicken plus several drinks came to 160 Rand (about £11.50). South Africa is a very interesting place with whites and blacks living in separate places. On the drive to the game park we past many shanty houses built of concrete or brick with corrugated iron roofs where the black people live. The marina staff are mainly black doing all the manual jobs with the staff in the yacht club office all white. Everyone is very friendly though and there is no sense of any hostile atmosphere. In the shopping mall we encountered one black man begging for bread but that was all we have seen in the way of poverty but there obviously are pockets of poverty. Today we are getting some boat jobs done and will probably go back to the shopping mall for me to get some retail therapy!! It is fun buying Christmas stuff too.