Today, I had planned to write about wildlife being killed on the road by speeding visitors and residents. But, when I saw the photos of the kudu that had to be shot when its legs were broken from being hit by a speeding car on Olifant Road, I decided not to post them. It’s heartbreaking.
As the season moves into school holiday time with more and more tourists visiting Marloth Park, this issue becomes more and more worrisome. Every weekend several animals are killed. This is terrifying for those who treasure every being in the park that we are blessed to enjoy. These poor animals deserve to live out their lives free from harm by humans.
We know many of our readers are visiting our site who live in South Africa and many other countries whose citizens come here to experience the joys of living in the bush, even if it’s for only a few days. Please, tourists, consider the lives of these fantastic creatures and come here with the intent of sharing in their beauty and majesty by driving slowly on all of the roads, including Olifant Road, the paved road, and all the dirt roads.
Last night, friends Alan and Fiona came for sundowners at 4:30 pm, 1630 hrs., and stayed until after 1:30 am. By the time we cleaned up and got to bed, we didn’t drift off until after 2:30 am. Fortunately, we both slept until 8:30 am and feel pretty good today. Six hours of sleep isn’t enough, so that a short nap might be on the agenda this afternoon. Twenty minutes is all it takes to make us feel refreshed.
In any case, we had a great time catching up with our dear friends. We hadn’t seen them in seven months since they left here to go to the Durban area and several timeshare properties in other regions of South Africa. It was great to see them again. They will be leaving again in September, but surely we’ll see them many more times over the winter.
The food, the wine, and the lively conversation flowed easily, as it always does with our bush friends, some from here and others from different parts of the world. The commonality we share of our love and fascination with wildlife and the unique lifestyle of living in the bush brings us all together in a magical way, unlike anything we’ve observed anywhere else in the world.
Undoubtedly, that fact is highly instrumental in our desire to return here, over and over again. As we always say, over and over again, life in the bush is magical based on its people and wildlife, a perfect combination for joy and adventure. It’s never dull. No, it’s not always an adventure, but invariably something comes up that grabs our attention and interest.
Louise and Danie stopped by this morning. We’ve been having some trouble with the inverter, which provides us with an opportunity to use a lamp and fan in the bedroom during power outages. But, more importantly, during outages and load shedding, we can use WiFi since the inverter provides power to the router.
This way, when the power is out, we can still stream shows on our streaming services, Netflix, Hulu, and Amazon Prime. Otherwise, it can be dull at night in the dark without power. We can’t see any animals stopping by; the only distraction would be dumb offline games on our phones. Plus, after a while, the phones go dead.
With the inverter, we can charge our devices, stream shows and be in the bedroom with one lamp working. Running a fan at night is the difference between sleeping and staying awake in the heat when it’s hot in the summer.
Tomorrow, Danie will return and resolve the inverter issue, and we can continue to have peace of mind. For the past two weeks, there hasn’t been any load shedding, but surely, it will start up again soon, which is always the case.
Today, we’ll dine in, cooking two rib-eye steaks on the braai, rice for Tom, steamed green beans, and salad. It’s an effortless dinner on a lazy day.
Enjoy your Sunday!
Photo from one year ago today, June 12, 2021:
Zebras are definitely a work of art!
Peggy, they are here right now as I respond to you, six of them including Polka Dot. It’s always fun to see them!
Thanks for writing!
Hugs from us both,
Jess & Tom