Insomnia(c)

3am, Friday morning. Can't sleep. Today will be my last day at work this year. I wish I could say that I'm awake because of the excitement of having reached the end of this 'working' year, but truth be known, it is the work that is keeping me awake. Funny how even though things have quietened down now, I'm still worried about the last minute things that need to get done, and anticipating the problems that I need to sort out when I get back to work in January. So wrong!

Anyway, besides work issues, I'm also mentally going through the checklist of things that I need to pack. Camera and battery charger are essentials (oh, and come to think of it, I'd better add cellphone charger to the list - although I'm not sure that there is coverage where we're going). I knew there was a reason I needed to logon and post this message...

What a day!

So the new addition to our family was the “Mongoose” - what you don’t know is that we also acquired a “Schwinn” – my entry level mountain bike complete with entry level components. What I learnt from G about the purchase of any bike is that it’s not about the paintwork or how attractive the bike looks (which, being a woman I thought that was very important) it’s all about the components!! So I am pleased to say that I now own a Schwinn mountain bike with Shimano components.

Now you can’t have a mountain bike without the mountain bike rack and you can’t have a mountain bike rack without a tow-bar. So my little A class was chosen as the vehicle which will be used to transport these two new additions. We have fitted the tow-bar and the mountain bike rack and my car looks quite snazzy now.

Our first mountain biking expedition into Africa was last Friday at the Ezemvelo Nature Reserve. After a long hike with G and his dad, we set off in the mid day heat to try and find the mysterious White Rhino which we were not able to spot from the car. G’s advice to me just before the ride was that should I be charged by a white rhino and her baby or any other wild animal for that matter I was under no circumstance to try and ride away from them but should rather discard by bicycle and run. I was really impressed that he believed I could out run a rhino ;-) thank love.

The dirt road/sand/rocks/incline of the hill seemed a lot harder to ride through than what I had originally expected. The first km was hard, the second even harder and by the fourth km I was finished. Having gearing down from 6 to 5 to 4 to 3 to 2 gear, G seemed to disappear into the horizon and as fast as my legs rotated I could not keep up. It was at this point that I turned my bike around waved goodbye to G and happily free wheeled down the road I had ridden up, heading back to the camping spot. I must admit that there was something quite tranquil about being on my own in the wild, I passed one Wildebeest and a family of warthogs who seemed a lot more scared of me than I was of them. Once safely back at camp I was quite proud of the fact that I had a) found my way home on my own (my sense of direction must be improving), b) not been charged or mauled by any wild animal, c) had ridden 7.9kms according to my odometer.

I loved the day out and will definitely be trying another mountain bike trail in the New Year. My first New Years resolution will be to get my mountain biking body into shape!

One week of work left

We had our annual xmas braai with our dinner club mates last night...Gillian and Pieter, Chris, Murray and Tanya, Anthony and Liezl and Chris' sister Trudy. Dave and Leigh couldn't make it, so we still haven't seen their baby. The whole point of the evening, besides getting together with our mates, was to each buy a R40 gift to exchange. K and I ended up getting a matching coffee mug set - very cool mugs, and a bit of a hangover this morning...great evening though.

There just seems to be so much to do still. We leave for Madagascar in 6 days time, and I still need to get K a xmas present, we need to sort out our forex, have the family over for festive drinks sometime this week, fit in a round of golf one afternoon in the next week still, try and organise a dinner out with Richard, Joanna, Gail, Trevor and the Morgans, pack all our clothes for the holiday, go through for a braai at Neil's folks' place on Friday evening, and then still get all our presents wrapped and ready for Saturday's lunch. Going to be an interesting week this...

The Morgan's are back in town...

Met up with Neil and Mandy on Friday evening. Frank called whilst we were on our way back from eZemvelo, and wanted to know if we were keen to go and see the new Harry Potter. We said we'd hook up with him at Eastgate and get tickets - but 5 minutes later, Neil called. He arrived back from the UK the day before for his sister's wedding. Anyway, we all ended up going out for pizza's and catching up. It was good to see them again. Last time we saw them was at Gail and Trevor's wedding in March - they're both well, and looks like they are keen on moving back to SA sometime soon. Mind you, this is Neil we're talking about - that's what the plan was...oooh, about 18 months ago now. We'll see.

Here's the proof

Just in case you thought I was pulling your leg about seeing Kudu on our hike, here is the proof. They're normally quite difficult to spot, and very shy animals, but we were lucky to spot 9 (i counted 4 bulls and 5 cows) at once. Really special to see these animals...

A day out at eZemvelo

We're nearing Christmas day now, and there are still so many things to do. We're not taking leave this week, and there's still a lot to get done before we leave for Madagascar on Saturday afternoon.

Friday was a pretty good day. It was a public holiday here in SA (Day of Reconcilliation), and K and I decided to get out of town. We went through to a game reserve / farm called eZemvelo - getting up at 5am in the morning, we arrived at around 8am. We met my dad there (he had camped over the night before) and set off on a hike that took us through some spectacular countryside. Some of the game that we saw included Impala, Kudu, Warthogs, Blue Wildebeest, Springbok and Eland. Top picture is on top of the "lookout" rock, with some great views of the surrounding countryside and the Wilge river (pictured below).

We also took our mountain bikes with, and after lunch, took off for some more sight-seeing, in some fiercly hot weather. Needless to say, we didn't cover much distance. K managed about 7km's, and I think that I notched up about 12km before heading back to the camp, and then home again.