Dad visited us March 2014

Spent a few days hiking near Bronkhorstspruit, sleeping in a stone 'hut'.

What! No Bicycles! Spoilsports.

Slight rain at times.

Nice roadside display of Cosmos.

Kruger Park.

Olifants River resort.

Stuck half-way across the river on our way to a lone Baobab tree attraction. Middle of lion country. Rocks to jack the bakkie up just got pushed deeper and deeper into the sand; tried lots of them. We were there quite a while.
A small car came in behind us and Dad told the driver that we were having a spot of bother. Dad's got no regional UK accent, almost like the old BBC accent, so he was taken aback when the English-speaking, white, South African tour guide (with client) asked him if he spoke English!!!! Dad asked me to talk to him. He told us to wait and he would call the Park's rangers - and be expected to pay a fine for driving down a closed road (the sign had fallen over). Luckily we got pulled out by a 4x4 half an hour later.
Thomas said that that episode was the highlight of the trip.

At our various camp-sites elephants and hyenas would patrol the fences at night.  

At the nearby Crocodile Farm reptile room.

Our back garden.

First chick

June 2013 - Our first chick, incubated in my self-designed incubator.

Final sculptures

Finally - the heads in concrete...
Left to right:
Mine - totally blindfolded from start to finish. The kids made me clay sausages and put them in my hands. The result was quite a shock - it really felt like a face; must try this task again sometime, spending more time on details.
Alex's - Sometimes blindfolded, the hair was all done blindfolded and Thomas and I told her where to put her clay sausages.
Thomas - one eye was blindfolded most of the time.

Blind sculpture and hike

Here I am with Alex and Thomas when we all tried to do a clay head while blindfolded. A very strange experience; a lot harder than we thought it would be.
Thomas did most of his without the blindfold, but tried it anyway.
Alex did some of the face and all the hair blindfolded but with our vocal guidance.
Here the kids are making clay sausages for me:

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Here we are half way through our hike near Rustenburg.
Very hot both days, 38 degrees all day, very little cloud, only one water spot each day.

Very nice huts, very nice cold showers : a bucket with a sprinkler on the bottom, hoisted up by a rope.
Strange insect:

I found a terrapin. I've never heard of one wild in this country, never mind in the Magaliesberg. No-one had heard of one. A very big surprise, but they do live here and there according to my nature books.

Sunday: we had some nice swimming in some great pools just above the top water in this picture. Still too hot to sit in the sun though.

First hut was tucked away in the trees; two sleeping huts and a nice eating area:

October Blog

Looked after Thomas and Alex the other week. We each did a life-size head in clay, no model or references.





Alex finishing off the eyes; she's at the age (9) where she can see something is wrong but can't fix it easily. She asked for a bit of verbal help, whereas Thomas (6) didn't want any help at all.







This is Thomas' head in the first stage of having a plaster mould made.



Here they are in concrete: mine, Alex's, Thomas':




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John and me resting in a smallish kloof. The camera was set up next to a small stream, still running even though the rains have hardly started. This was a very nice shady spot; very welcome in the baking hot, dry area we were hiking.

Thomas, Rita and Yvonne scrambling up part of the lovely walk we did recently: a good 6 hours of: hiking, climbing down to a kloof (gully or gorge), along another rocky kloof and up another one - back on top and back to where we started. The only footpath was on top. I was surprised Thomas did so well, and even more surprised when he wanted to do more hiking the following weekend. He slept all the way home.

last month

Sheila and Rita posing for a photo when this great elephant almost ran them over. We really have to try to be a bit more careful, after all this is Africa.
Sheila, our niece, spent 4 weeks with us - unfortunately it is Winter, so it was quite cold. But, we found a few things to do:
The Rhino park - lots of animals, a few fibreglass models near the entrance, lots of lions, tigers, many different buck, warthogs, ostriches, plus lion cubs to play with, and a nice reptile room. Sheila wouldn't even look at the snakes: culturally terrified of them.
Transvaal Museum in Pretoria, - nice geology display rooms, a nice history of life on earth: origins and animal kingdom classifications explained.
Maropeng - a newish museum of human origins near Sterkfontein Caves (which have yielded human fossils) and the area has had finds of more human fossils than the rest of the world put together.
Gold Reef City - plenty of exciting rides...
and of course... shopping.

Went to a Rhino park and saw a few young ones with mothers. I really like this shot.

Then Alex and I started a painting. Next week we should get to complete it; she's really looking forward to it.

Hiking recently in the Free State, on a game farm. We were the only people there, which was nice. Evenings and breakfast spent around the fire... not too cold, and enough game to keep us alert.

Some small game near the braai spot:

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This Blog's main purpose has been overtaken by Flickr's photo-sharing aspects. But, I'll try and update this site once a month with a few of the month's highlights and try to find something interesting to share from the Internet.