A day out at Hartbeespoort

As the youngest child is returning to live in the UK in 2 weeks, we asked him what places near us he'd like to revisit before he leaves.

Today's venue of choice was Bush Monkeys. It's a 60km drive from Centurion. once you leave the N14 be very careful on the roads. As you can see from the pictures it can be unsafe, but it's a journey I've completed many times alone and never had a problem.

The road is full of pot holes and the sides just drop off, watch out for speeding vehicles, plus there are no road markings so difficult to know where the over taking places are.



We stopped on route at Tan Malie se winkel, a wonderful restaurant with open fires in the winter, lapas on a terrace to enjoy a full meal or just a drink. Tan Malie is situated on the right just after the tunnel and the dam.

We drove onto Bush Babies. It cost R195 for an adult and R95 for a child 14 and under. Tours last an hour and start on the hour from 9am - 3pm. Our tour guide was extremely knowledgeable about where the monkeys originated from and was able to answer a wide variety of questions.

We have visited here many times and take all our visitors to enjoy the experience, unfortunately Appie, the over friendly, kleptomaniac monkey decided today he wasn't happy just sitting on my shoulders but decided to take a chunk out of my arm. My son was then armed with a water bottle to squirt at him should he come near me again.

After our tour we headed back and stopped at The Chameleon village we had driven through on route to Bush babies. The Chameleon village is open 7 days a week. Here we wandered round the market, the shops and stopped for a spot of lunch.

 

We then strolled over the road to the Welwitschia Market, open Tuesday-Sunday 9am-5pm before heading home a slightly different route by avoiding the Dam as the road over and through the tunnel is single track.


There are plenty of places to stop on route, cafes, restaurants, retail areas, plenty of fuel stations and accommodation. I personally would suggest you visit first for the day and decide where you want to go and what you want to visit: from Riding an Elephant, Aerial Cable Cars, Canopy tours and Ballooning, which are all on our 'to do next' list.

When no one stops to help

I think it's such a shame in this day and age that the days of the good samaritan have passed us by...I'm not going all religious on you here, but what with it being Easter and living in a religious country, I half expected better.

Now it turned out this was nothing more than a drunk, passing out on the side of the road, but how are you to know that? He could've been diabetic, he could've been attacked or anything.

Yesterday I was out with my youngest and his mate nearing a 4 way stop, so I'm travelling at next to nothing. I see about 10 cars ahead of me a young man on the pavement, I don't notice him stagger i just see him crash to the ground and smash his head on the kerb. What do i do? I live in South Africa, one doesn't stop for anyone, ever, not even a female in distress as it could be a ploy to rob, rape or murder you, yes I'm being serious. No one else stops, no one else even pays attention, and as I drive past I notice he's vomited, yes he may be drunk, but he could also have a head injury. So what do I do?

I don't know the number for a government ambulance, in fact I dob't know the number for our medical aid ambulance either, so I pull into the garage, I tell the manager what has happened, he says I've done the right thing and he grabs a worker and they run off to help. As I leave the garage, having sone my bit, I glance up the road, he is still unconscious and no one has stopped to help.

I called back into the garage today to find out what had happened. The manager told me he was drunk, he was wearing a uniform for another petrol station, they had phoned them and said this guy was an alcoholic and they were trying to help him. The guy had come round and had refused any help, so they took him back to the garage where they let him sleep it off.

I apologised to the mananger he said 'what for?' 'you did the right thing and no one else did anything, thank you for stopping'

I will do the same again, from a distance and I must call my medical aid company in the morning to get the number for an ambulance...just in case.

I grew up with Africa

I've startted to make a few friends here, it's taken a year, I've volunteered and generally put myself out there.

In many conversations the question about snow is always asked, by friends, in cafes, in shops. 'What is the snow like?'

I'm also asked what the UK thinks of Africa. How do the media portray it?

When we arrived here on 19th January 2011, I had done little research. I was working right up till the 15th December, had decorators in, had estate agents and tennents looking at the house. Had banks, utilities etc to organise and put 100% faith in the HR over here to sort us out as promised. (Pah! big mistake) My only research was to watch Invictus the night before we flew out.

So I thought about what I knew about Africa before moving here. My first awareness of Africa was 1985 and Live Aid...I was 14. We had a sleep over at my friends house and Mandy and I managed to stay up till about 4am.
Images of starving and dying children, women walking for miles to get water and families leaving their homes to seek medical attention. The there was 'Free Nelson Mandela' campaigns. I never really knew why he was in prison on Robben Island for 27 years, but I bought a badge and a poster, like everyone else. Finally there was the World Cup 2010 and the Gautrain and I remember seeing people on the TV with coats and hats on in July wondering why...it's always hot in Africa..isn't it? (we had burst water pipes here in July when the temp dropped to -5c)

So what did I do for Africa? We made and sold cakes at school, we bought Red noses for Comic relief day, we joined in with the Shoebox appeal (don't laugh, I used to put hat, scarf and gloves in, not knowing it was the middle of summer in December) took our clothes to Oxfam.

But what about the violence, where did that knowledge come from? Of course it was from the Media. Prior to us moving out a woman was killed after her taxi was hijacked in Cape Town on her honeymoon, we know the full story now, but I remember the media portraying stories of this as being common place, ritual tyre burnings, the horror of Rwanda and many other atrocities in Africa. More recently in Zimbabwe.

I didn't know the capital of South Africa was Pretoria, I thought it was Johannesburg. My knowledge of anything else in Africa was all gained from the media...send money/food/clothing...and I'm still not sure why all of this goes on and what I can do to make a change.