Girl's Weekend in SA

Since Doug has been leading a 10-day Teen Leadership Training at Hawane Resort in Swaziland, I jumped aboard Stephanie and Michelle's trip to South Africa this past 3-day weekend (yup, another one...this time it was in celebration of 'Flag Day'). It was a potpourri trip of sorts as we went to Melalane, Nelspruit, Hazyview, and Kruger National Park.

We left on Saturday afternoon and made it to Malelane where we stayed at a nice guest house called, River Cottage.

Dining Room

Palm tree huggers

Pool

Lookout - since the guest house borders Kruger National Park, there is a lookout point for guests to look for game

We had dinner at a place called, Hamilton's, which came highly recommended by our friends Jason and Fiona. It didn't disappoint. As a starter, we had a papaya, goat cheese, and duck salad (in Africa???). Crazy, I know.

Then, on Sunday morning we got up (what we thought was early) as we intended to drive through Kruger National Park on our way to our second stop, Hazyview. Unfortunately, due the fact it was also a 3-day weekend in South Africa (Bank Holiday), Kruger had already met its quota for 'day visitors' and the park was closed to any further traffic. We were a little sad that we weren't going to see any animals on a scenic drive through the park, but, given our new knowledge of the 3-day weekend, we were also concerned about whether the shops would be open on Monday in Nelspruit (which was what really motivated our trip...Stephanie and Michelle were in need of some camping gear for their upcoming trip to Namibia and the closest 'mall' with such a store was in Nelspruit). So, since Kruger was a no-go, we had a little extra time to drive into Nelspruit to assess the situation for the following day. While we were in town, we were able to pick-up our World Cup 2010 tickets at a satellite sales office - which was awesome to finally secure the tickets and to have them in our possession!

After our side-trip through Nelspruit, we continued on to Hazyview and checked-in at the Gecko Lodge through which we had also booked an afternoon zip line tour.

Gecko Lodge

Our tour left at 1:00pm and as we were kitting-up and signing waivers, we met the family that would be joining us on our zip line tour.

Safety harnesses - check.

We decided it couldn't be that scary if a 5 year old wanted to do it...Granted, she did pee herself before the tour's end...

Here's a picture of the first cable line. It's hard to capture the vastness of the area we were zipping over and through, but I tried.

And off the platform I went

Through the air with the greatest of ease

My face at the end of the first cable. I liked it.

Stephanie getting hooked-up

Michelle getting ready for her first turn

All smiles

Crossing the bridge from one platform to the next

We had to get at least one picture of the 5 year old

The course included 10 cables and after the first 3 wide-open ones, the rest wound through the woods and along a river

We had another tasty meal on Sunday evening and turned in early to give Kruger another shot on Monday morning. Fortunately, we arrived at the Phabeni Gate at 6:45am and made the visitor cut. We took a scenic tour through the park and saw zebras, giraffes, and elephants before stopping at a 'bird hide' to do a little birdwatching on our way out.

The cool thing about Kruger is its size...because it is so many hectares in area, large groups of animals live together. While this is just a snapshot of the herd of zebra, I stopped counting at 75...

The underbrush was so GREEN

Bird hide view

This little guy had the world's longest toes...they were awesome for walking on the lilypads

Egyptian Goose

Flying away

Finally, we began to make our way to Nelspruit for a little shopping.

Along the way we stopped at a fruit/vegetable stand to stock-up on fruits/vegetables going out of season in Swaziland. Here's Michelle negotiating the price of mangoes, papaya, and avocados.

Besides fruit/vegetables there were also a couple of craft stalls. This guy was pretty creative in how to secure his carvings in the wind.

And finally, the mall. I have to admit, it was a strange trip to the mall. I stood in the middle of an 'intersection' in the mall for about 10 minutes simply staring in every direction. It was like 'stuff' overload. All of the things that are not available in Swaziland were suddenly surrounding me! At first I wasn't sure what to do or where to go - but, I grounded myself with my 'list' and made my way around the mall. Surprisingly, for all of the things that I 'wanted,' I really didn't buy much of anything. Every item I picked up seemed like such a waste of money since I have lived without it for the past 9 months. However, the one thing that I was thrilled to get was a blender/chopper/small appliance thingy. And a sweater - since it is quickly becoming winter! Finally, I'll be able to blend my homemade soups!

We finished off our outing with a quick lunch and then it was back on the road to Swaziland.

It was a really fun weekend and I really enjoyed getting out of town for a couple of days.