AliVinToAfrica: Animals, food and the Gym

Spotlighting in NZ is mostly about a few small animals pr possibly one or two larger ones. Here, wandering around with a powerful torch you never quite know what is going to be looking back at you.

Last night I managed to convince Ali that it wasn't necessary to go to bed at 7:30pm (talk about a nana!!!!) and off we went to see what was out there.

A bush baby! crikey they are noisy for a small cute thing that looks a bit like the aussy invader possum. And no, despite its red eyes and being up a tree, I felt no inclination to send a .22 bullet at it.

A little further, and we spooked a Nyala bull, or possibly a Kudu. They are very similar. Not far from it was a family of warthogs. These were the least frightened by the light, but still retreated back through the not so effective fence.

RK News. Yes, for those of you waiting to here what Africa can do in this regard..

A hyena who hadn't quite got the idea of looking both ways.

And, just so you don't grumble, the photo was taken with camera in right hand, window open and still going something like 60km/hr as we had traffic behind us, and nowhere to stop. Pretty impressed I even got it in the frame.

The Gym. We aim to spend at least an hour or more at The Gym each day.

The above picture is of The Gym, taken as we approached on our way back from Musina today. It takes about 45 minutes to climb, if you don't stop to look for snakes, or watch the sunrise, both of which we have been doing, so The Gym can be a good 2 hours or more, after which, we are either just in time to make second breakfast, or if later in the day we may sink to a beer and wine moment. Someone has to, otherwise all those fine winemakers and brewers would be unemployed.

Food. Preety darn good. Yesterday we chanced the lunch buffet for R100 each for which we had 2 hot meats, lots of yum veges, rice, chocolate cake, creamy ice cream tea and coffee. We even ordered an orange juice each, and when the bill arrived, they'd called us pensioners, charged us R180 each for the meal and R20 for the juice! Pensioners!!!! jeeze.

We have noticed that the Afrikaan male is mostly seriously big! They eat a lot (and BIG pieces) of meat. No wonder they can beat the All Blacks. Guessing being 150kg would not mean you are overweight here, at least not if you are watching rugby in the pub or floating in the hot pool at Tshipise.

The bar b q is called a Brai, here, and tonight, after checking out the wildlife in the dark (close encounter with a large warthog) we got our brai lit up, and cooked a large sausage thingy with an unpronounceable name, made by the butcher (he is huge, as his lady and daughter) on site here. It was excellent. Cost about $3NZ, and could feed three people easily, although we think here it is a single serve.

Late now, all of 9pm, but we've an early appointment at The Gym.. nite nite