A typical BlackLOG journey and Rippons Safari day 1

For those of you who find it all gets a bit wordy (I make no judgement if your reading level is that of a three year old, especially since the writing level here is that of a two year old) you can always skip down to the bottom for the nice pictures...

Going on Safari for most people is relatively easy.  You choose where you want to go, pay loads of money, get excited about it and a few weeks later you find yourself packing your bags and hey presto you are dumped in front of a load of wild animals and left dumb struck at just how excited a grown adult can get* at seeing a wild and dangerous animal at relatively close quarters. This is followed by a series of high pitched squeaks as your words tumble out on top of each other in a desperate and ultimately failed attempt to over dramatically express what you are feeling….  

Our summer vacation
Safari day 2

Safari day 3

Mauritius

* Now I’m not talking pant wetting here but it is not far off. Take yourself back to childhood when as a small sticky child, pumped full of E numbers, you excitedly bounced off your bedroom walls as you awaited the arrival of a rather overweight (probably verging on the obese) elderly gentleman in red, with undetermined white fur trimmings, offering you toys for being “Good”**

** Correct me if I’m wrong but doesn’t this all smack of good old fashioned child grooming? Yet parents all over the word actively encourage their children to be “Good for Santa” – I don’t remember ever being told what “Good” entailed and quite frankly with the benefit of hindsight and a rather warped imagination, I’m sure glad I never had the opportunity to find out….

Regular readers will be aware that life is never going to be that simple in BlackLOG. There is of course the inevitable issue of luggage allowance, which with 46 KG of checked baggage and as much hand luggage as can be crushed into two smallish bags between us should not be an issue. Except Mrs B rather selfishly wants to take more than one pair of shoes and additional clothing beyond what she is wearing –

Woman we are only going away for 2 weeks, not emigrating….

On top of this and despite years of intensive training she has a tendency to topple over backwards whenever I place a rucksack on her back that comes close to her body weight

- I knew I should have married that Russian shot putter.  I would have got used to her having bigger moobs, a deeper voice and having to shave her back twice a day but ultimately there was just something not right about the Camel Toe…… 

You see unlike most people we get the dubious pleasure of travelling with The Beast and I can tell you The Beast does not pack light – He makes U2’s sound and light rigging seem like a couple of carrier bags worth…   

After the initial packing had been pared down we got the hold luggage to 46.2 KG - close enough.  With the hand luggage we had got to a stage where Mrs B could walk nonchalantly for about 10 metres before staggering and collapsing like a Gazelle hit by an elephant gun…just about enough room for Mrs B to get behind a pillar and out of site, so check-in didn’t decide to call her back to check the weight of her hand luggage …. The Kitchen sink (Oakley Rucksack – yes it is called the Kitchen sink) was fine as long as I kept bolt upright and did not lean more than 5 degrees in any direction, otherwise there was a real danger that I would start to sway like a building in a 9.9 level earthquake…  

The first test over we were safely checked in and sitting on the plane – what on earth could go wrong….?

We sat and waited and just as we were due to take off the announcement was made - they were having some technical difficulties but should be sorted out in a few minutes and we would be underway…..An hour later we were still sitting there,  only we were a whole lot sweatier and not just because we had a tight connection to make once we made it to Johannesburg. During the emergency they had turned off the air-conditioning while they worked on the problem, which did not turn out to be anything vital in my book like the entertainment system not working. It came down to the spare toilet in first class not functioning properly (Now I’m only guessing that it was the spare as this is very much dependent on my assumption that each 1^st class passenger has a private toilet all to themselves.  I might actually be way out of line and the poor things have to share 12 toilets between 24 of them…..). 

We made it into the air 1 hour and 25 minutes late, with the assurance from our captain that he was confident that he could make most of the time back…. It is one of the few times in my life when I have been on a plane that managed to lose time, only seconds here and there  but over a 10 hour flight that starts to add up. At the halfway point I officially gave up any thoughts of making our connection and started composing letters of complaint to BA in my head.  The South African girl next to us didn’t help when she declared that we looked like we would be arriving on time….Yeah, if you count an hour and 45 minutes late as being on time.. To be fair the Steward was pretty good and once I told him our plight and he had stopped laughing he assured me everything would be resolved once we landed….

The captain announced something about the slight delay and hoped we had enjoyed the flight…. Mrs B might have done, blissfully sleeping through most of it but I had spent a miserable time tracking the landing time (in-between films) and trying to work out, if we employed a relative of Usain Bolt as a porter, whether we would be able to make it through customs, pickup our luggage, change terminals, re-check our luggage and go through security all in less than 13 minutes.

Allowing for a strong following wind, a world record or very close to it unloading of our luggage, a polite wave through both customs and passport control and flight check in at the speed of a cheetah on steroids, we were still going to be 35 possibly 36 minutes short….Damn that Hermione and once again her reluctance to share her Time Turner…

As it was I’m glad that I had not struck our friendly steward for laughing at our plight.  He had arranged for us to be on the next flight, due to take off just 4 hours after our original one…. Bless him but I should have given him a bit of a slapping for not telling us sooner, having been haunted by visions, all through the flight, of us being stranded in Jo’berg for 24 hours. 

Once again we got through check in,  although the woman at the desk had problems locating us on the passenger list but took one look at our desperately forlorn faces, made a couple of calls, complaining that her supervisor was smoking something medicinal and didn’t have a clue what was going on, issued us some tickets and it was game on again. 

Oh my god we have got an upgrade....

We even got an upgrade…well when I say we, I mean The Beast and the Kitchen Sink, not Mrs B and I. As we were now on a much smaller plane the overhead lockers were not conducive to having a “filled to the gunnels” Kitchen Sink wedged into them and as there was no way on earth that it would slide, squeeze or even be jammed under the seat in front (not without unbolting the seat and precariously balancing it on the Kitchen Sink. I suspect the passenger in said seat and the crew might have taken a dim view of this action….) the steward demanded that the Kitchen Sink be taken off and put in the hold. I explained about the expensive camera equipment and after a few minutes consultation with his colleague he decided it could be stored in one of the empty rows in First class….

So thus The Beast and the Kitchen Sink got upgraded while Mrs B and I watched on in envy from pleb class….

We arrived at Rippons Safari lodge on the Shamwari game reserve at 7pm,  just as the evening game drive – the one we should have been on – returned to base. Still we had made it and had only missed out on one drive out of seven we were booked onto…It could have been a whole lot worse.  We were greeted enthusiastically by Brian and Michelle and ushered into dinner…Brian proved to be an excellent host and raconteur and had tons of anecdotes about the local area, the animals and previous guests. Personally Mrs B and I liked him but from what has been written some guests don’t take to his no nonsense approach ie “This is a safari and we are dedicated to getting you out to see the animals, so the rooms are basic with no distractions like TVs and radios. If you are looking for 5 Star entertainment you have come to the wrong lodge”. I found the accommodation far from basic and the food plentiful and absolutely delicious and the staff warm and friendly…Looking at the (very few) negative comments on Trip finder, about Rippons Lodge you start to realise that you really can’t please everyone in life. You can always find people who will complain about something…

“I would never have come on this free trip if I had known that the rooms were not as nice as the ones provided for people paying full price”

“If that guide gives me one more interesting fact about the thousands of animals we are seeing I’m going to scream”

“I know I specifically asked for my steak to be extremely rare but I didn’t imagine it would be so pink….”

“I didn’t expect ‘Death by Chocolate’ to be quite so chocolaty….”

I’ve actually heard someone complain about one of these, can you guess which one? Prizes will be handed out at the end of your life but in the meantime you can bask in the glory of knowing you got it right...well if you do that is and I remember to post the answer next week....

On our first day’s drives, for the morning (a little bit early for Mrs B’s tastes but she got up all the same: the call of the wild was just too strong) we were lucky to have the vehicle and the Ranger - Frances - to ourselves. While in the evening we were joined partway through by Peter and Rachel a honeymoon couple from Ireland.

Animals seen on day 1:

Morning Drive

Vervet Monkey

Lion

Elephant

Giraffe

White Rhinoceros

Warthog

Springbok

Impala

Kudu

Waterbuck

At Rippons Lodge

Various birds - (Carl you are welcome to chip in for any names that are missing or wrong...)

Leopard Tortoise

Evening Drive

Vervet Monkey

Lion

Elephant

Burchell’s Zebra

Giraffe

Springbok

Impala

Eland        

That was just day 1 of our Safari – I’ll leave you with the photos and don’t forget to come back next time for days 2 and 3, followed the week after by the end of our trip as we chill out in Mauritius before flying back to the hum drum of everyday life….a little poorer in the wallet but a whole lot more enriched in mind and spirit….

Photo finish
I've heard that people rather pathetically try and transpose human emotions onto animals – I’ve tried my best to avoid falling into this trap…. 
  
Morning game drive

"The only job I can get in this damned recession is
as a lookout. I don’t feel guilty it’s not like those
banks can’t spare the cash…."



Despite a brave attempt the entire Herd family 
missed their Impala Airways flight when they got
distracted by the duty free…  

The Impala Airways stewardess went that extra mile

during the flight safety briefing by not only showing

where the emergency exits were but actually

demonstrating how to use them…

Redbilled oxpecker to rhino
"Can I have a word in your shell like?" 

Elephants can eat between 250 to 300 Kilo's a day
That is one hell of a weekly shopping bill...

Just the Springbok fullback to beat

but word was he was fast

…very fast…

The referee had no option but to award a penalty try

after the Springboks continued to collapse

the scrum on their own line….

Dyson are thinking of launching a new range

of vacuum cleaners called the Warthog

which will hoover up everything…

  Rippons Lodge

A blue starling in flight

A southern booby,
although it's probably not, it's such a great name
I had to use it. Carl (or any other bird experts)
- now would be a good time to chip in..


P.S. If it is a southern Booby I meant it all along and
this was just a test for you non-twitchers...



A leopard tortoise stalking its quarry…

it’s probably just as well lettuce does not move that fast…

Evening game drive
Where things start to get a little bit friskier...

Impala courtship exposed

1 of 2


Bob -
 "She's mine I tell you..."


Dave -
"Not a chance I saw her first"

2 of 2

Hillary  -

"I don't know about you but I find all this

aggression rather tiresome"

Mildred –

“That’s easy for you to say, I haven’t had any

for ages.  I’m so desperate that if he

can still get it up I’ll even take the loser…”

"OK which joker put super glue on the grass?"

 Zebra sex education lessons

1 of 2

Sydney - the world’s only zebra sex therapist

“Harold for pity's sake calm down and try and

remember the picture from your Zebra Sutra book

It’s Zebra fashion all the way, none of that

fancy human stuff for us…….”

2 of 2

Sydney -

"Better but I suggest you aim a little lower son

otherwise she’s gonna kick your knackers off"

A zebra doing an impromptu performance, playing

the part of Mrs B, doing an impression of a gazelle

being shot by an elephant gun….

The start of the Impala 100 metre dash.


The winners get to live another day


while the losers get to dine with the Lion family....

 When lion sex goes wrong
Today's casebook, Leo's having trouble getting it on with his new lady friend and to make things worse he fears she's being influenced by her lesbian best friend.

1 of 5
Sharon –
"Damit Leo that's my tail... "

2 of 5
Leo - "It's not as if I did it deliberately"

3 of 5
Miriam –
"It's OK honey I told you
he was a beast."



4 of 5
Leo -
"I suppose a quick shag is out of the question then?"



5 of 5

Miriam –

“I’m telling you girl you don’t need them”

Sharon –

“But I want to have my own cubs”

Miriam –

"We could adopt or even go for artificial

insemination, my aunt used a Zebra Baster….”

Leo -

Skulking in the bushes  

“I Knew it….”

So I said to that vampire - 

“You think you suffer from an overbite problem?”

"I'm actually a leopard trapped in an Impala's body..."

 

"Is it just me or are you feeling horny...."

Spot was hacked off, how could his parents be so cruel??

 Elephant holidays

"Pack your trunks guys we're going on holiday…"



"Don’t talk to me, I’ve  been
informed that the Last Jumbo
Jet flight out of here has just
been cancelled…"

I make no apologies for some of the lamest jokes in the world- feel free to try and see if you can do any worse….

P.S. I can't promise there won't be more of the same next week...