Author Archives: Bridget

Did I say it would be cold? June 26, 2013

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Some of my friends know me as Weather Girl, since I have a bit of a thing about the weather. Note – this fixation doesn’t come close to John’s weather fettish .
So I took a look at the overnight temperature recorded in Mildura last night. And the 1 (one) degree they reported explains why the bottle of olive oil froze.
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It would also explain why even my hot water bottle struggled to stop me shivering. It seems strange to wish for hot flushes.

Once the sun was up and the agony over, we were greeted with a beautiful day. We wandered over to see the Lock 9 on the Murray. Quite interesting, as I didn’t even know there were any locks on the Murray. There were pelicans galore, all milling round the base of the weir, just waiting for the fish to pop out.
We continued on across the border to South Australia where we had to dump our fruit for fruit fly quarantine. However, it’s been a long time since I crossed such a border, and now we have to handover our potatoes, tomatoes, lettuce, broccoli, beans, capsicums, zucchini, garlic….basically everything I had just bought! But hey, the fruit and veg shops in Renmark do very well. So through Renmark we went, where John “forgot” to stop for my caffeine hit. Words have been said. We had lunch in the lovely town of Burra, an historical copper mining town from the mid 1800s. It once produced 5% of the world’s copper.
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It seemed to take forever to get to Melrose, on the edge of the Flinders Ranges. Again, it is freezing. Tonight we will wear even more clothes to bed. We’re camped at the local show grounds, and the boys are off for a ride tomorrow as Melrose has some great mountain biking trails. John already squeazed in a ride before dark.

Let’s get out of town – June 25, 2013

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Here we go. Fourteen weeks, three states and one territory, a mum (me) and a dad, two boys (9 and 10 years old), three bikes, one kayak, 5 surfboards, dive gear, fishing rods, cameras, computers, lots of food – all packed in the new(ish) off road camper trailer. And of course the footy and the basketball. Not so sure we’ll see too many basketball rings where we’re going.

The plan – Flinders Ranges, Coober Pedy, William Creek and anything else in South Australia on the way to the Red Centre. See and do everything there that we can. Go north. Get to Darwin. Go west. Show the boys the amazing Kimberley. Start going south. See the beautiful west coast, Karijini, Gnaraloo – the list is long. Get to Perth. Check the date. Take it from there.
We started today at a civilised 8.30am. I refused to leave at “stupid o’clock”. I maintain that if it’s after midnight, and it’s dark, then you should be asleep.
It was a perfect winter’s day. Sunny and clear, and best of all – not windy.
We stopped in Avoca for my caffeine hit, plus multiple purchases at the bakery. From there, we travelled the rolling plains, where there was the odd wind farm. I love wind farms. I think it’s the serenity of the gently rotating blades. We reminisced about this being the place that John did his very first MTB race (where he won the novice category) and raced against a very young Cadel Evans (who won the Pro category).
On to Mildura. John lived here in 1991 when he first started with NAB. But we drove straight through and on to Cullulleraine (yes, that is how you spell it) and found the mighty Murray River where we set up for our first night. Here’s Ferg and Harry with their fire.
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It’s going to be a cold night!

The last blog from Africa

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It’s sad to be leaving this great continent. We have only seen a snippet of what it has to offer. I know we will visit again. We met a family today who are off to Rwanda to see the gorillas!
We will remember all the great safari drives and our many lucky sightings, the spectacular Victoria Falls, Cape Town and such things as diving with the Great White Sharks, the view of and from Table Mountain.
I won’t forget the fact that, even though Kenya is well known for producing good coffee, there was nothing good about the scarce number of coffees I had.
I won’t forget the tipping fiasco. Everyone wants a tip. The guides, the porters, the waiters. Some lodges and hotels have a box for “tips” that’s the size of two shoe boxes!
I won’t forget how slow the trucks can go. Why can’t African trucks go as fast as they do in Australia?
I won’t forget that the Americans have lost the mantle of world’s worst tourist. That now belongs to the Chinese, who haven’t worked out they are not the only people in the world.
I won’t forget how much I love my iPad! It has my photos, my books to read, games for the boys, the net for the world, google maps so we know where we are, email so we can stay in touch, and, of course, our blog.
I won’t forget the many guides we’ve had to show us their world. Each one does his job because he loves it and has a genuine love of the wild life. They were as excited as we were each time we found something to see.
My favourite for the trip: our time in Chobe National Reserve, staying at Muchenje Lodge. The sightings were second to none, especially the elephants, and the friendly hosts made it a brilliant stay.
Fergus and Harry vote for the same thing: seeing the leopard and her two cubs. Even though it only lasted 30 seconds, it was a privilege to see these wild cats.
And John: his is visiting Cape Town and all that we saw and did there.

The boys did a count tonight:
Slept in 14 different beds
Visited 5 countries
Flown on 10 aeroplanes and one helicopter
Been on 9 boats
Travelled in 15 cars or buses
Been swimming in 7 pools, one beach and one dive
And ridden one Segway

We look forward to seeing everyone who has read our travel blog.
Bridget

Out of Africa – July 19

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William called today a “late start” at 7.30am. We left Lion Hill Lodge and spent an hour or so on our last safari drive to the Reserve exit. There was nothing to add to our list of sightings, we have certainly achieved all our dreams.
We headed south east towards Nairobi and stopped off at Lake Naivasha where we took a small boat out to an island. It’s the one where they filmed for the movie “Out of Africa”. They brought in the zebra, wildebeest, giraffes and more just to make the movie, and the animals are still there. You can walk around amongst them. The bird life on the lake is great to watch. We saw a kingfisher dive in and catch a fish, the try to swallow it. There were some hippos wallowing in the shallows, and I was glad we didn’t run into a submerged one.
We saw a baby wildebeest:

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As well as a baby zebra:

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And this cute giraffe:

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And they were all up close and personal. Ferg said he was really happy to do the walk with the animals.

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We drove on through the Rift Valley where the world’s best marathon runners are bred, and the mist turned to smog as we got closer to the big smoke.
We have arrived at the hotel in Nairobi where we stay tonight before the long trek home. The hotel is adjacent to the Nairobi National Reserve, right in the city. We can’t see any animals because it is the season of plenty, and they are way out of view feasting on the plains.

The Equator eludes us

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Right up there with reaching geographical extremes, like the Cape of Good Hope, is crossing the equator.
Kenya straddles the equator, and if you care to google-map Lake Nakaru, you’ll see we are just about there. But not quite!
John’s watch gizmo, that I have previously described, which is the reason for much attention to our elevation, also gives us our latitude and longitude coordinates.

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And here we are less than one degree from the equator. It’s kind of like nearly getting 100% for an exam result, or turning back at Hillary’s Step on Everest. Well, okay, that might be an exaggeration.
Anyway, it’s damn close.