Making friends while traveling…A local friend’s birthday celebration…A social life…Please scroll for more visitors…

In a few weeks, I’m going out to a “girls only” lunch date with two lovely women with whom we’ve socialized as couples. It’s been 15 months since I’ve had a “girls only” lunch with my dear friends from our old neighborhood; Nelleke, Jamie, and Sue, when they planned a get together one last time before we left on Halloween 2012. 

Although not daily visitors, we can count on the kudus to stop by once a week. The wildlife grazes on a rotating basis to ensure they don’t “wipe out” any single area of vegetation. How clever, Mother Nature!

Last Friday, our friends Hettie and Piet invited us to lunch as their guests to one of their favorite restaurants in Komatipoort, Tambarina, a quaint Portuguese restaurant. Offering the freshest of ingredients and known for their jumbo prawns imported from the neighboring country of Mozambique, their menu was diverse and appealing, the resulting food absolutely delicious.

If we lived here, we’d never tire of the graceful beauty of the kudu or for that matter, of any of the wildlife that comes our way with the exception of poisonous insects. Whether a dung beetle, a tree frog, a mongoose, a turtle or the yet-to-visit wildebeest, we love seeing them.

With both of their birthdays early in the month, we celebrated, enjoying yet another excellent time together.  We look forward to their return by the end of this month as well as the return of other friends, we’ve been fortunate enough to make in Marloth Park.

The mineral lick hasn’t garnered as much attention as we’d anticipated.  A few days ago a warthog pushed it out of his way with his snout, showing no interest whatsoever. Thus far, a few kudus have nibbled at it. Guess we won’t need another one of these.

Of course, Louise and Danie, our hard-working hosts, are much more to us than “landlords.” They frequently stop by to see if we need anything but more importantly, for both of us, is the time they spend visiting with us, as we all get to know each other. They are very special people.

The center kudu was nudging the kudu on the left with his massive horns. We seldom see a female kudu in our yard who protect their young in secluded locations during their infancy.  Once impregnated, the males permanently avoid the females and the offspring. A dominant male may mate with many females, leaving other males without a mating opportunity. Later, the boys hang out together, the dominant male heading up the herd.