We are so looking forward to this trip. We are spending night of 18 May at City Lodge at Jo'burg Airport; anyone joining us there?

See everyone at Birkenhead on Tuesday!!!!

We're also looking forward to this trip with great relish. Waiting all these months has been tough. We're flying to Johannesburg on the 13th and staying at City Lodge on the 15th. On the 16th - 18th, we're staying at Grootbos Private Nature Reserve not far from Hermanus. We'll see everyone at Birkenhead on the 19th. If ZEBRA 1 & 2 are any indication, it should be a great trip.

Bert and I are sitting in the Centurion Lounge at DFW wIting to board our flight to AMS then on to JNB. Gotta love award travel. We will sleep at the airport tomorrow' night then spend 2 nights at Stirling Manor (maybe you know our travel agent who recommended this beautiful property near Joburg) before flying to Cape Town. Dinner with Russell and Susan at Baia on Sunday night. So looking forward to meeting new friends and having fun.

Have a great trip Mitch and Bert. I know Susan and Russ left today as well. Alas we don't leave until Sunday. Can hardly wait to see you all.

Safe travels to all of you. Hope you have an amazing adventure. Birkenhead House and Safari - you can't beat that! Enjoy!

Bert and Mitch, have a great time! Just sitting here remembering our great adventures on ROAR 2!

Safe travels to all. Bert we are just gonna miss you at Stirling Manor as we arrive on Sunday!
---------------
Helen

We made it to AMS. Good flight. Boarding soon for JNB. Olivia I have been thinking about you and Jess and all the fun we had on ROAR2. Can't wait to see everyone.

Happy travels group three. Anxious to see you all. Doing multiple groups is great. I get the camps on our civilized routine and get to know the managers and Rangers so each group benefits from the ones that came before.

The game viewing has been fantastic with both groups and I am hoping that the heat will pass and your group will have some normal weather. Temperature today is over 90, it is crazy. We go out in the afternoon a little bit later if it is too hot. The animals do not like that heat anymore than we do.

Hope you all have a great time on your pre group plans.

We are in Cape Town! The BA flight was a little delayed, but we made it. Meeting Russell and Susan for dinner at Baia. We had a great 2 days at Stirling Manor in Hartbespoort near Joburg. Beautiful property directly on a lake. Took a boat trip and visited Ukutula where we played with lion cubs and walked with 4-2 year old lions. That was an experience. I will try to post some pictures. Did not enjoy driving-bad enough driving on the "wrong" side of the road, but the roads were narrow with no shoulders, no dividing lines and people speed everywhere. Seems even stop signs and red lights are optional. Now I can relax and let someone else do the driving. Weather looks good for tomorrow so we will hopefully make it to Table Mountain and Robben Island which we missed on ROAR2.

Dave . Let us know about Gootbos

We are in Johannesburg. Uneventful 15 hour flight from Atlanta. Ready to bed down so we can get up early for our flight to Cape Town in the morning.

See everyone tomorrow!!!

Had a great 1 1/2 days in Cape Town. Fabulous dinner at Baia with Susan and Russell. Yesterday the weather gods smiled and we got to experience Table Mountain at its best then took a moving tour at Robben Island. Ate a little bistro with small plates on Long Street in City Center called Fork which was deservedly well reviewed on Trip Advisor. Getting picked up in an hour for the trip to Hermanus. Saw some whales yesterday in the harbor so I expect we should be seeing some more shortly. Can't wait to meet up with the rest of the group!

Finally at Birkenhead! Fantastic lunch with great friends old and new. Arlene is off at the spa whilst i am enjoying the crashing surf from the patio. Life is good!!!

pammy,

Grootbos was fabulous. There are two lodges, Garden Lodge and Forrest Lodge. The Garden Lodge is more family oriented. The Forrest Lodge is newer and more modern while the Garden Lodge is more Colonial in style. Both lodges have freestanding cottages that are large and luxurious. We stayed in both lodges although I preferred our cottage at the Forrest Lodge.

Grootbos was sort of a combination of a Regent cruise and what I imagine our upcoming safaris will be like. The food was never less than very good. The great majority of the dishes were excellent. The service was outstanding. We had a terrific guide named Jo who took us on several included excursions.

I highly recommend Grootbos. My only regret is that we don't live closer so we could stay there more often.

Thanks. We have a 4 day period between Giraffe and a family safari so we were looking for a place to recover for those days. Thanks for the info.

Excited for Group 3 to begin...this would have our group had we not cancelled. Mitch & Bert, glad you made it to Ukutula "Walk With The Lion". We really enjoyed this on our last visit to South Africa.

Now you're getting to enjoy Birkenhead, another one of our favorite places on earth.
Wishing you all a fabulous time with great animal sightings.

Such a lovely day at Birkenhead House. Four went off to the great white sharks and others went to the animal farm. The shark people did not get back until after 3.00 pm a long day. They saw eleven sharks. I heard the guys did not go in the water but the only girl in the group got in the water.

The animal farm was a big hit but for those on Zebra one the cheetah we all petted was not into people today. So they petted one of the other cheetahs. The cranky lion was still cranky. This host drove them to everything instead of walking.

I dumped out my duffles and got bit organized so I only have to open one of my duffle during the safari and all I got all I need for the flight home prepared. Nice to just putter around and relax. Totally revitalized for this group so many newbies and they are so much fun to take on safari. I hope those wild dogs and cheetahs are hanging around.

Sharks were great although a three hour tour (sans Gilligan) turned into a six hour tour. First stop we saw four sharks in four hours while dealing with middling swells. Then, we moved to the shallows; saw seven sharks in one hour in much smoother seas; FANTASTIC.

Came back at 3:15 to a fantastic lunch followed by time out on the patio before a wonderful cocktail hour followed by superb dinner followed by after dinner drinks in the lounge. Birkenhead House is fantastic and all the little tweaks by Ngaire (e.g., buffet dinner yesterday and pre-ordering dinner today whilst at lunch) make the experience even more enjoyable.

Tomorrow we head to La Residence. I think it is a two hour drive; I wonder how many verses of "99 bottles of beer on the wall: and "the wheels on the bus" we can make it through! Once we get there we have lunch with plenty of wine; oh how we love to travel with LCTers.

Two more days of relaxation then off to the game camps!!!

More later!

Russell's Photos from the Shark Excursion:


The Shark Viewing Cage.


The photo of another boat in the area.

We are at beautiful La Residence! Lovely weather getting ready to go down to view the sunset shortly.

After lunch everyone went into town. The girls to shop and the guys to drink beer. Ken and I stayed behind to handle a few odds and ends and be LAZY.

Just two more delightful nights here and then off to the bush. Hope those wild dogs are still around!

GREAT shark pics! Glad we were in a bigger boat than the one pictured!

Wow, Russ, amazing shark pics!

I can just close my eyes and imagine being at La Residence again - a little bit of heaven on earth.

Have a wonderful time on Zebra 3, Everyone. Hoping for lots of safari mail!

La Residence and La Petite Ferme Winery:


Lunch at La Residence on our arrival.


Joan, Ngaire & Bert.


John, the owner.


A toast to Eugene for finding this wonderful place!!

Ngaire, could you do me a favor and ask at Mala Mala when you get there if they found a memory card in room 3? I changed the memory card for my camera on the last day there and now at home I can't find it anywhere! It has 2000+ pictures!
-------------
Helen

Will definitely do that Helen to lose those pictures is devastating.

We are at the Cape Town airport waiting for our flight to our first game camp. We have had such a wonderful time at Birkenhead (absolute Heaven to me) and La Residence (absolute Paradise to me) both of which I have always wanted to experience and they didn't let me down. The spa at Birkenhead was phenomenal. So excited though to now be off to the game camps!

At La Residence this morning we had birthday cake with our breakfast (celebrating Joan and Dave's birthdays this year). You have to love a place that serves dessert with breakfast!

We have a great cohesive group and as great as the last 4 days have been the real fun starts today so ......with cooperation from the Internet we will update you all later

thanks for the update Arlene. It sure is Heaven,we love both Birkenhead and LaResidence!

Now for the best part to begin.....

Quick update.

Arrived at Lion Sands and had a wonderful lunch. Then off on our first game drive. Fantastic start. We all saw a lot of elephants, miscelleanous game but the big pay off was the leopard. A huge male leopard and the first vehicle saw the male lion sitting and walking and got great shots in the open. Then he moved and we followed off road in some difficult terrain and found him again.

Then the other two vehicles arrived. They followed him for about thirty minutes and also heard him vocalize as he marked his territory.

To start with a quality leopard sighting was really exciting.

Cannot wait to see what tomorrow brings.

Lion Sands:


Our pickup from Skukuza Airport.


We all saw this male leopard on our first drive.


Honey Badger.






Hippo walk.

Quick update.

Morning drive. We found the lions three males and two females. We arrived just when one of the males was returning. A little greeting reception and then they all flopped down. Back to sleeping lions.

The highlight was not just one honey badger but two and for a long time. They ran close to the road and we kept up with one of them. We got a really good look at them and some great pictures. First time I have down them.

For Ken Simpson. "I've seen that".

Lots of elephants as well. Then we saw a big male rhino we went crashing through the bush following him. He came into a clearing and started feeding. He was making noises eating I have not heard before. The other cars came in as well.

After breakfast we went to see the hippos and again more elephants. Once we found the hippos they were mostly out of the water and some on their products way to get out of the water. It was a great sighting.

On our evening game drive it started slow. But it ended with two different hyena sightings both fairly good and a second leopard. A younger male than our first leopard. We followed him for a little while and it was dark. He came across some impala so we turned off the spotlight and hoped for a kill not to be the impala started the alarm call and that was that. The leopard did do a bunch of vocalizing so it was still neat.

We ended with a wonderful bush dinner complete with flushing toilets.

Wonderful today now we see what tomorrow holds.

Wow, I am jealous about you seeing honey badgers.

What an afternoon game drive. We saw leopard tracks and then heard an alarm call that meant a predator was seen by the impala. Off into the bush we go. Some really thick off road driving. We caught a glimpse of the leopard but could not find her but we found a kill in the bush. We gave It another shot from a different angle but it was too thick.

We went off to find something else. Next exciting thing was going to a hyena den. We arrived to see two very tiny all black puppies, probably about 6 weeks old along with some about 4 -6 months old They were cute and playing. Then hyena started returning to the den. Suddenly there was squealing and lots of noise with hyenas chasing each other and fighting. The little ones retreated into the den along with the hyena that was being chased. More hyena came with all the welcoming each other behavior. Probably about 7 hyena plus the little ones. Then more fighting broke out. The hyenas were right next to our vehicle. The tracker put his feet up on the car not to get a leg caught in the fighting accidentally. The noises were amazing. Without a doubt the best hyena sighting we have ever had.

Driving back crossing the road right in front of us was a leopard. We followed him off road for a while. Then there were a lot of impala in the bush. One of the impala sounded the alarm call. The leopard was right there surrounded by impala. Again I thought yeah a kill. Again not to be the leopard did not take a kill and then disappeared into the bush. We left to return to camp. We did hear that they found the leopard again

During the drive we saw a lot of solid dog tracks. Tomorrow that is where we are headed. Right now the lions are roaring and we are about to go to sleep after a great dinner

LIFE IS GOOD.

Dog tracks everywhere this morning but no dogs. All the vehicles were looking. This is a pack of seven and we had 12 at Mala Mala so I have not given up yet.

The vehicles all saw the same things today. Elephant, small herd of Cape Buffalo, giraffe, zebra and lots duiker today.

Now packing up to head to Mala Mala

Arrived at Mala Mala. For those on Zebra 1 and 2 , Calvin the batman is on leave. DARN! However Calvin taught Nerene how to make the cosmos so she is going to be the Cosmo girl. Hopefully she will fill Calvins shoes.

Nothing in the river on arrival this time. Missed that big herd of Cape Buffalo but we know at some point we will have excitement in the river.

Our rangers are Mike, Fritz, Gordon, and Griff. Great group of guys. Most important of all they said the dogs are still around. FANTASTIC. Cannot wait to get out there and find them.

Thanks for the updates and photos! I love that one of the little elephants holding trunks! And how cool to see the honey badgers!! So glad you got a good shot of one!

Mala Mala is such a magical place. I wish they had a webcam pointing at the river.

Talking about the river, Bert and I are on the deck after breakfast watching the baboons play. The impala are grazing and trying to prevent themselves from appearing on someone's lunch menu. A wet rhino just lumbered past. Still looking for the elusive wild dogs. Lots of rhino that are very "relaxed" around the vehicles, as the Rangers say. The weather and the company has been terrific and we are all enjoying the trip of a lifetime. Time to rest up for the rest of the day's activities-lunch at 2 and the afternoon game drive at 3. More later...

Last photos before leaving Lion Sands:


Warthogs.


Brown Snake Eagle.


Impala.


Faith presents Mitch with a happy birthday cupcake at our bush breakfast.


Hyena pup.






Found this male leopard on our way back to the lodge.


Our last sunrise before we left Lion Sands.


Cape Buffalo road block.

Mala Mala:


Female Kudu.


Two male Cheetahs.






Guineafowl.


Waterbuck.




Lilac Breasted Roller.

Afternoon game drive. Highlight of the day CHEETAH. When we left the ranger was asked to find cheetah. Being the expert I think I am I said "that is not happening". After viewing some plains animals we got the call - cheetah.

A Ferrari safari commenced as we flew down the road. We were the furtherest away and the cheetahs were mobile heading to Chitwa Chitwa. When we got there they had stopped just about twenty yards from the boundary. They were sitting under a tree. Not a great sighting but at least the group got to see cheetah.

This morning it was very quiet. Fresh tracks of Leopard and Lion all over the place but we could not find them. Great rhino and a beautiful morning but the disaster was no amarula on the vehicle. However we survived,

Off to lunch and then this afternoons drive.