Yep, that’s right in broad daylight, in the middle of a crowed city street by a gang o guys. I would like to say that I fought all of them and left them bleeding and bruised in the street ala Chuck but no, one had a knife so I surrendered like a girl. Well not really, they pushed me and shoved me to the ground, where I skilfully (OK it was arse!) fell on my backpack thus avoiding loosing that too (thanks be to god, as my hard drive with all my photos was in there!). Luckily they only wanted to go through my pockets and once they realised I wasn’t fighting back they had a quick rummage and bailed. Silly buggers got my phone but weren’t good enough to find my small hidden wallet. Suckers! Anyway I’m not gonna get another phone and have lost both my SA and Australian sim cards so no point in smsing me in future.
I’ve also up-loaded some more photos, have now used my allowance for the month so will be able to load up more next month. For those of you who don’t already know Pete is safely back from East Timor, he’s been there working for the last 6 weeks or so. Was gonna write about some other stuff but can’t be stuffed now. Next time!
I’ve set up my flickr account but haven’t managed to link it here yet. For the mo’ here is the flickr address: http://www.flickr.com/photos/gregdick/ This will also be link on the righthand side of my blog.
Atm most of the photos are of Mum - ‘cos she hasn’t seen them yet. Next round will be more from other adventures (I’ve a set limmit of how much I can upload at a time) hopefully I’ll get them up soon.
More to follow.
Well folks after being here for nine months and not having been bitten by anything, now I’ve been nailed twice in a week! Firstly I have ticbite fever, obviously caused by a tic. I noticed the headache on Wed arvo and still had it Thur so knew I’d been bitten by something! Glands came up Friday and then I found the bite on my ankle. Nice big one too, way better than Mums bite when she got it during our trip! It’s as big as a 50c piece with a red angry outter ring and a grey pusy centre that just looks like it’s ready to burst! Yummy! So, when I got back to my tent on Saturday after being away for 2 days the first thing that happens as I get in? A scorpion nails me! Ha! Luckily it wasn’t venemous so just like a bad bee sting really… so what’s gonna be the third thing?? Not a lion!
Been away at a Big 5 farm for the last few days. Taking a overland tour on a Big 5 Walk. Essentially there were a lot of private, fenced in farms on the west boundry of the Kruger. A while ago they pulled down all the fences between these farms and Kruger to make Kruger park a hell of a lot bigger. Now animals can come and go as they please. We were staying on one of these farms. The only animal of the big 5 we saw was a herd of elephants, they were right outside the compoud when we returned from our walk! We took the group to within about 60m of the herd but the younger ones started to get very nervous (knowing nothing about elephants and having only been in the country for 2 days this was a bit much for them!) Ed and I took them back to camp and proceeded to get within about 25m of the herd. What a rush! Got some great photos and now I’m sure I wanna be a wildlife photographer sneaking around taking photos! Wahoo!
I’ve survived a year away, and what’s more I don’t really wanna come home! Still on course and having great time, spent a day last week tracking Giraffe on foot at a property down the road. Ended up seeing 6 in all including a few young ones. Unfortunatly we also found a dead baby, thankfully it wasn’t due to poaching, most likely he fell down the gully and broke his neck. A real pity to find this years young dead but such is the way of mother nature.
Another animal adventure I forgot to mention is that we went swimming with whale sharks (about 8 weeks ago in Moz). We swam with a 7-8m whale shark and man it was HUGE! The first time you put your face underwater and see it is quite a shock! Apparently these things grow to upto 3x that size I can’t imagine one that is 18-20m long, that would be one seriously huge mouth!
I’m off on a big five walk tomorrow. We walk with a bunch of guests though a big 5 farm for the day. Not camping overnight in the bush though unfortunatly as some of them do, I’ll get my chance soon enough. Apart from that nothing much has changed, still living in the bush, cooking my own food (yum!) and getting to town when I can.
Oh yeah, nice one Zidane! But since you were going to get sent off anyway why not break his nose (I’m not condoning violence in sport young ones)?? Just glad that I wasn’t in Lygon St for the match!
Out.
Hey there - wow almost a year already huh? Gee time flies when you’re having fun (and not working!) and believe me I’ve been having a bunch of fun! Not a hell of a lot has changed since my last post! The next round of the World cup has been played and I’m looking forward to the Semi’s starting tomorrow. Pitty there is only 3 games left! Oh well, starting next week is Tri-Nations so that will give me something to fight about with the Saffa’s!
I’m in Hazyview still and have just about finished the course. I’ll be staying on here for a while to get some more experience and swot up for my FGASA Level 1 exam. Have decided to do it, doing all this work and study and not getting the qualification seems kinda silly. The old attitude of ‘Can’t hurt, can only do good.’
I’m in teh process of setting up my photos here, will be heading into a bigger town where the internet is cheap to upload a bunch of photos in the next little while so stand by for a plethora of photos recounting my adventures!
Can’t say I’ll be barracking for any team in particular for the rest of the football, possibley the French (’cos of Watlers girlfriend) if I feel the need to barrack. Personally I’ll be barracking for me to have more beer, a task I know I can succeed at!