As always, Ken, WONDERFUL photos. Of course, with spectacular scenery and smiling faces, you have great images to capture. Looking forward to "More Roar."

Mitch, Sounds delicious. Isn't Birkenhead unbelievable? I can just imagine what the other property Ngaire visited is like. Weather in the pictures looks pretty good. Hope it lasts for your shark excursion (or was it scrubbed?). Ken, great pictures, as usual.

Gail and I are up in Montauk. We were supposed to go back to DC today, but it's rained all weekend, so we're staying an extra day because it's sunny.

We'll keep checking LCT for ROAR2 updates. Can't wait to see the pictures from the camps.

--------------

Gail and Eugene

Photos in Hermanus, SA:


Bouchard Finlayson Vinyard.


Mary Elaine Enjoys Wine Tastings.


Hermanus From an Overlook.


Southern Right Whales in Hermanus.

What a fabulous time you all are having! It sounds every bit as wonderful as anticipated, and you all certainly aren't letting a "little bit of rain" put a damper on you at BH! I can't wait to read more - I am just soaking up every post and every picture. Thank you ALL.

Hi everyone.

Well NO sharks for our group but we did make the best of it and went wine tasting. Birkenhead House used the house van, the villa station wagon and two of their personal cars to drive us around. We saw some of the really nice residential areas and the area for an overlooks that I have not seen before as well.

The goes from rain, to sun, to cloudy all day. Grant and Dena went to town to walk back and then there was a heavy shower. Bet they are wet little people right now.

We played a little Pooch this afternoon in the main room with the fire going, Bert won and Pam and Jim learned to play.

Food has been great and I always enjoy Birkenhead House so much. Love coming here. It is a nice place for people to relax and get to know each other. This is a very compatible and happy group.

Tomorrow we leave and Cindy's group comes in and the best day all week is supposed to be the 17th which is that groups shark day. So I think they will have the shark experience.

Wine Tour and Cape Point tour in the next few days for us.

Grant and Ken thanks for the photos. Grant looks like you are off to winning another photo contest.

Have a great time. We are heading to Houston on Wednesday, your trip sounds like more fun. Business in Houston is not up and running as of Monday. They hope by Wednesday. We will see.

Thanks all for the wonderful posts, we all appreciate you taking the time. We hang on every word and love every photo.

We are getting ready to return to Cape Town today after two wonderful days at Birkenhead House. The whale watching is incredible - we walked with Tonya and John this morning and saw many whales very close to shore - it was very cool that we could hear them breathe a few times. Hopefully we got some good photos - we'll post those later. In the meantime, here are a few more photos from Hermanus:

WOW!!!

What great photos, we are getting very excited about heading to Birkenhead..

Thanks for sharing.

FV

Awesome photos and posts - thanks for sharing!

Thoroughly enjoying the posts and pics...thanks to all who are making our virtual safari so wonderful back home! :app:

Hello ROARers,

Just looked at the pictures that Grtant has taken, WOW !! Also looked like you all had quite a GALA at Birthday and dinner. Thanks for sharing, and the best to all. Rod & Cynthia

Birkenhead

Seems like this is one place a person should visit at least once in a lifetime. I think you'd get a taste of what Heaven's like.

Cheers! Ray & Penny

Hi All-
Last night a bunch of us went to Bukhara, thanks to Olivia, and had a great feast-Dena and Grant, Richard, Olivia and Jessica, John and Tonya, Pat and Ray (who were great sports as Indian food is NOT their favorite) and Bert and I. Today we went on the Wine Tour starting with a visit to a brand new luxury sister property of Birkenhead House, La Residence, which was breahtakingly beuatiful, followed by a wine tasting, lunch and glass shopping. And on the 4th day, there will be sunlight!! We all appreciated the opportunity to see La Residence whch will clearly be an option for ROAR III. Well, time to prepare for our next event, group dinner at Baia-

Today Grant, Jessica and I drove from Cape Town back to Hermanus to join Cindy's group on their shark viewing tour (since ours was cancelled due to poor weather). The conditions were ideal except that the recent bad weather had stirred up the water so that the underwater visibility was poor. It was very interesting and exciting to see the great white sharks up close and personal! I pulled a few pictures from the many that Grant took to give you a quick preview. I'm looking out the hotel room window to a beautiful full moon reflecting on the bay. Life is good in Cape Town! Tomorrow is a free day for our group.

Dena

WOW Dena, up close and personal for sure! Great photos! Thanks for sharing them.

Dena, thanks to you and Grant for driving Jes back there for this experience. I am just back from dinner at Baia with the group, and it was great! I know you guys were waaaay too tired, and there is a room service tray in my room to show it!

Dinner seemed to go well tonight! My table ordered 4 entrees for 5 people and did fine! I think Pat was taking pictures.

Well, we are relaxing comfortably in room 1 in Birkenhead House after a great day in Hermanus. Our trip started on the 14th out of JFK on SAA. All went smoothly. Usually it takes an hour 15 to get to the airport and it took us just under an hour. The lounge was nice. They served Bagels and lox, soup, fruit salad, cheese platter and the usual snack crap. We had no problems with security. The only negative was that we taxied for one hour at Kennedy before taking off. Food was surprisingly good JFK to Darkar, service good and the flight was good. Food was less than good Darkar on...We were running rather tight on time in JBG and a lovely man told us to follow him and he would help us make the plane. We followed him through short cuts and had time to spare for our flight to Capetown. Both our bags and we were out in minutes and our driver was there waiting for us and whisked us away to the Radisson. Doug wanted to eat at Baia, so we grabbed a cab for $4 and went straight over and had a great meal there before crashing in for a night's sleep.

Breakfast the next morning was surprisingly good. We saw Russ and Debbie and didn't realize we saw Andrea and Leonard and Bill and Gemma (because we hadn't yet met). Soon, Arlene and Gil arrived and introductions were made. Gil and Arlene compared notes with us regarding our flights as we took the same one a day or two apart and it seemed like they were different airlines. They had terrible food and service. However, they received boarding passes all the way through and we were told this wasn't possible and had to check in in JBG, which is what caused us so much angst. We were met with cold, blustery rainy weather and I was sorry I hadn't taken warmer clothes. I had considered doing this, but really wanted to pack light and didn't have any in between jacket for this type of weather except my leather one and left it home. I was really sorry I did that!!

We wandered to the lobby and said our hellos and introductions and piled into the bus and off to Hermanus. When we arrived, it was good to see old friends and say hello/good byes while being handed some wonderful hot chocolate with amaretto. Since our rooms weren't ready, we all settled down to a long lunch and then checked out one another's beautiful rooms. All the beds were covered in exquisite flower arrangements that looked like embroidery. The flowers were even arranged on the shower mats and the tub towels. There was tremendous attention to detail. We all received lovely gifts of Birkenhead hats which was a nice surprise. Our discussions were always punctuated with "ooh, look there's a whale over there. There's another one. And another one...." The whales come so close to shore. Doug, June, Cindy, MarK and I went to town to see what there was there and to pick us some sundries. I found a warm jacket, Mark and Cindy found some hats for the safari and then we wandered to the whale walk.

The shuttle picked us up and we returned to a fire in the fireplace and hors d'hoevres and then settled in for the night for all sorts of discussions that carried on throughout dinner.

Today, we awoke to a beautiful day...blue, sunny skies....just right for our shark trip. We had breakfast outdoors overlooking the sea. Jess, Dena and Grant drove up from Capetown to join us and we headed off at 11. We stopped off at a beautiful site to see some whales and then finally boarded the boat at 1pm. Within about 10 minutes we dropped anchor and within minutes of throwing in the chum, the sharks were circling us. We left about 4-4:30. So it was a fun afternoon. The dive master said that we saw about 6 sharks total and this was only the 3rd time this month that they had been able to go out, so we were lucky. We were even luckier, because he had gone out this morning and they hadn't even seen any sharks. We saw non-stop sharks. Once we arrived back, we were met with a fire in the fireplace again and snacks. The staff had set up a lovely table for some honeymooners in a separate room. They had sprinkled rose petals all over the floor and lighted a fireplace for them. It was so romantic.

This has been a great two days. It's been great seeing old friends and making new ones. We will be sorry to see this group leave. Doug and I are staying for another two days and we are glad we made the choice to stay longer. We're going to go to the wildflower festival and to the wineries and to walk along the the beach walk. We were supposed to go out on the shark tour on the 19th, but we decided to switch to today since the weather has been so iffy. Hope the weather stays nice for everyone else as it is really beautiful here.

Loving all of your great reports and pixs - makes us look so forward to our November trip hearing about your great experiences at BH and in CPT - am totally confused about who goes where for the lodges but it'll be fun to hear the reports -

I can hardly believe we'll be there in a few short months. Your reports are so exciting.

I know what you mean, Joanna. I gave up trying to figure out who goes where.

Looking forward to seeing you and Tony.

Agree Donna - nice group in November and I look forward to seeing you both - Joanna

I wrote a whole post and then just lost it. Back to “do it in Word first”.

Yesterday while we were doing our wine tour (perfect weather for that day it makes such a difference) we got a call from the Great White Shark company. They said the only real possibility of going out in the next few days was the morning of the 18th. The next group was supposed to go out on the 19th. So we decided to give it a try on the morning of the 18th.

12 people in the last group and 5 of us from the first group decided to get up at 5.00 am and drive to Hermanus and try to go out and see the sharks. That is VERY early. When I looked out it was a little windy so I was immediately concerned but the shark people said “ it is still a go”.

So off we go, a two hour drive down. On arrival in Hermanus we got out to see the whales. Although it was windy and chilly the sea looked okay. The direction of the wind makes a difference in the roughness of the seas. So I thought it was going to be okay. However, the driver said “sorry folks it has been cancelled for today”. So here we are 17 people, now hungry and wanting more coffee. Twelve people not due to check in until noon and five who were not supposed to return to Birkenhead House. It was 7.30 am and we were about two minutes away from Birkenhead House.

We called and Birkenhead House was so gracious. This is a small place that holds only 22 when full. So it is completely full, and 17 new people invade the property, right at breakfast time. Within a few minutes they had coffee for everyone and very shortly after they offered a complimentary continental breakfast to all of us as long as we ate in the lounge and left the tables for the guests they already had in the house.

I really love this property they are so accommodating and this was just one more example of how special Birkenhead House can be.

It was fun to surprise those we saw who looked quite astonished at seeing us arrive. Pat was the only one up and was shortly joined by Fred. The only others we saw were Cathy, Doug, and Leonard. All the rest were tucked up in bed. After about an hour the Cape Town group left and drove the two hours back. Oh well, we gave it a try. I have been here about three times before and never had any trouble getting out on the shark tour. Cape Town has had a hard winter and it just does not seem to want to turn into spring yet.

Hopefully on GAME the weather will have settled down back to normal.

So tomorrow the 19th for Ngaire and Cindy’s group it is a Cape Point tour. It is supposed to be partly sunny and windy but no rain. Hope that holds up it is no fun when it rains. Then on the 20th, Saturday off to the game parks.

Sounds like everyone is having a wonderful time. Grant, the shark pictures were definitely up close and personal, thought they were going to jump right out of my computer!!!

Enjoying all the different posters and I agree Donna and Joanna, have no idea who is where or when! :D

I am going to dip in here, while I am on a "real" computer; came to the business center and rented some time.

Yesterday's wine country tour was just beautiful and the weather was perfect! Last night at BAIA was as incredible as ever, we are considering crashing the party over there tonight.

We did some shopping today. We thought we had covered all the nicer jewelry stores day before yesterday, in Mark's quest for a black diamond but found two more. One said she would try to find one, but probably couldn't in time. Then Mark saw a store that you had to buzz the door to get in, and they had four loose stones. Two were far too large, one was heart-shaped, but they had one square one that was just slightly smaller than he was looking for, so he jumped on that one. He's so thrilled. I hit the Red Shed and a store called Indaba (I think, don't have the bag handy). While were in the mall it started raining and blowing, so we found a cab home.

Hopefully it won't rain tomorrow for the Cape Point tour.

I am enjoying the reports and photos from all you ROARers! So sorry that the weather is not cooperating. Sounds as if you are all having a great time in spite of that. Hope the weather is better today, for your tour.

We went on the same shark trip as Grant. Here are a few more shots of our watery friends.









Doug

I love hearing from all of you ROARers - thanks so much for continuing to post so we can share your adventure with you!

Today we still had a rental car so we decided to drive out to the winelands to see what we missed yesterday when we did the shark viewing. First we stopped in at a cheetah outreach center thanks to some tips from Andrea and Leonard. We did an encounter with 5 very adorable and sweet cheetah cubs who were about 5 months old. As we finished at the cheetah center, the rain began coming down pretty hard and didn't really let up the rest of the day until we got back to Cape Town. Due to the weather we did not see the winelands scenery at its best, but it looks very nice. We stopped in the town of Franschhoek for some shopping and bought some nice craft items. Looks like the weather will be better tomorrow, and we look forward to seeing penguins.

Wonderful cheetah pictures Grant and Dena.

-------------

Eugene

And awfully friendly cheetahs!

Grant and Dena, I am here, but not with you today, Those kitties look SO SWEET!

Today was a whirlwind for us. My Jes didn't pack well, not imagining that it could be so cold. Yesterday, we got her closed toed shoes, ended up she loved and bought same Merrill brand that Ngaire loves so much. Today it was raining so much and she had no rain gear, and after shopping a bit, got her a water resistant wind breaker much cheaper than spending way more for a real rain jacket she would never use again. What she got, I bought, and will use it next trip in November! At the end of our shopping, we had an hour for lunch before our tour, and Jes was in line at the food court and ran into Mark and Pam! We both chose to eat at the Thai place in the fast food area, as we had 40 minutes before our Township tour, which was great!

This was a highlight of my trip, just because I didn't do this before on ROAR 1 like Anne and Gary! I have always looked at those shanty areas when coming from the airports and going on various outings on my visits here, I was so curious to be there. Now I have stepped on those lands, and walked the paths. Our guide took us inside one shanty. It was a pretty large room, probably 20x20. There were maybe 10 on our tour, but there were a few local people inside just waiting for the visit. There, we watched 2 men finishing the cleaning of a couple of chickens. All the feathers had been plucked and there were a couple of women opposite putting the discarded feathers in a bucket. The men were scrapping off the bristles, I guess, and trimming the feet. They seemed to spend a lot of time when we were there still cleaning rather featherless creatures. Funny thing, guide asked what we thought this place was! I said butcher market, other said "take-out", many other guesses, but it was the local pub!

Those ladies in charge here who own the place brew the ale, and darned if they didn't put a bucket of it on the floor for everyone to try! Pass around the bucket and your tour group is supposed to finish it off before you are allowed to leave! Everyone is so friendly here. I don't think I've ever seen more smiles anywhere I've visited. Our guide Zippo told us today, don't be shy, they love your visits to their townships, and they really do!

My problem here was with my cameras, all of them lost battery power within about 10 minutes (3 CAMERAS!) after we left the District 6 Museum at that start of the tour! Local guy took me to the 7-11 type store, Jes told me they would be bad batteries, I bought 8 for $3, and they were dead in 10 minutes. She had this problem in VIetnam.

It was one of my greatest travel days ever into a place so strange, foreign and friendly, and I didn't even have a camera to record most of it! I hope when Andrea and Leonard are here, they will do a tour like this, with all cameras working!!

WOW Olivia, I loved hearing about your tour. What a great experience. Too bad about your cameras though. I'd sure have enjoyed seeing those photos! Keep having fun and keep reporting, please!
And Dena & Grant, your cheetah cub photos are wonderful.

Great story Olivia.We did the Soweto tour in Joberg and felt the same way.

I have an announcement to make...if you want top notch restaurants ...get Ralph to choose them!!!

Last night Ralph,Carol,David,Mary Elaine,Ray and I went out of town to Camps Bay to the RoundHouse Restaurant. It was built in 1743 by the Dutch as a Garrison house protecting the harbour.It is now a World Heritage site. To see it go to www.roundhouserestaurant.com

THE MENU WAS OF THE TASTING TYPE WHERE THEY SERVED THE APPROPRIATE WINES(ooops sorry caps were on) with each course. Lets see if I can remember the courses we selected.

APPETISERS; HONEY Roasted vegitabletart withVanilla Marscapone

Souffle of Gorganzola with poached pear andwalnut foam.

Carpace of Springbok & tartar Kurdu with a quail egg and rocket greens.

Soft Shelled crabs(awesome)

Grilled Salmon

Grilled Quail with date risotto (yum)

Roasted Fillet of beef

Duo of Duck

Needless to say we wanted everything on the menu.

The wines were exellent and the setting was ,well, "out of Africa".

As I have already stated,Ralph chose the Beluga and tonights places to dine...thank you,thank you.thank you.....You are now in charge of our dining spots in Copenhagan and everywhere in Norway next year.

Earlier in the morning I went back to Hermanas to try the sharks again but as already noted no go....but that was ok by me as it gave us another chance to visit EDEN better known as Birkenhead house again....god I love that place.

Bert and Mitch told us about a neat African gallery where they had purchased a beautiful mask ,Ray said he didn't go for masks....he,he,he....guess what he got...yup masks..2 of them.Really pretty.

Well its8am now and time to get breakfast then off to Cape Point and another wonderful adventure as only Ngaire and Ken can plan

TTFN

Well, we've been here a week and this is the first time we've had a chance to check into LCT. ROAR 2 is AWESOME! Leonard and I are having so much fun. South Africa is a very complex and fascinating country and it's been an honor sharing it with so many terrific LCTers. This group is so much fun!

Len's got some great photos that I'll need to post soon. I hope to do that tonight, because I'm not sure how great the Internet connection will be at Kings Camp and Leopard Hills.

To everyone who encouraged us to book this trip, THANK YOU! Can anyone say ROAR 3?!

Andrea & Leonard

Pat sounds like you 6 are having a great time - not surprised - food and wine sounds wonderful - keep reporting we love it!

Pat, what a wonderful menu, the venue sounded PERFECT!

So happy to get these great updates. I loved seeing the Cheetahs with Dena & Grant, that would be so special and also hearing about Olivia's township tour. Keep having a great time! (I agree, Ralph picks wonderful restaurants....even here in So. California!)

Wow - the cheetahs are adorable! And those shark photos were great!

We are now cooling our heels at the Intercontinental at the Johannesburg Airport after traveling 36 hours from our house to here. Terminal 5 at Heathrow is terrific and the BA facilities top notch - a great improvement.
We checked in at 7 this morning and were thrilled to find out that our room was actually ready. Napped a bit then I headed up to the spa for a 2 1/2 hour package including a salt scrub, Indian head massage, reflexology and aromatherapy massage. All were terrific and very reasonable.

The IC is very nice - the reviews on tripadvisor are very mixed so I was a bit leery, but the hotel has been undergoing renovation which seems to be winding up. Our room is very comfy and looks to be brand new. The spa was renovated also and has an indoor pool, steam showers, exercise facilities and at least 4 treatment rooms. The staff is great - everyone you see greats you with a smile. Can't beat the location, right across from the airport.

We meet the rest of the group tomorrow around noon for the flights to the camps. Can't wait for the first game drive.

Good to hear from you Leslie and that you are enjoying your stay at the IC.

Wishing you and Brad a fantastic time!