January 2018 - TRAVELBUCKET

CATCH OF THE DAY

This holiday we were exploring our own region to see whether there are still spots that we have not visited before and to my astonishment we did found such a place – Gullilule bird hide near the Fairy Knowe Hotel! The Pied King Fishers is one of my favourite birds as they have magnificent hovering and diving skills. With their black and white plumage, they are not as colourful as the rest of the King Fisher family, but still very pretty. On arrival we found a pair perched on some dry branches right in front of the hide and shortly thereafter they started their display for us. It was time to get out the camera and start clicking! First their super hovering skills were displayed, then with perfect timing a quick dive into the water was executed (alas too quick for me to get the shot) and when it surfaced… Read more >

WILDERNESS CAMPING

Through social media I noticed that a woman was recently attacked by a beaut of a leopard in the Matopi campsite in the Kgalagadi Transfrontier Park and there is a bit of a hype amongst campers at the moment. As usual there are a lot of accusations flying around on the how, why, do’s and don’ts. I want to stress that we have camped in the wilderness for the past 20 years and never ever had any incident/accident while camping in an unfenced campsite in Africa. We encountered hyenas skimming our tent in Moremi, a shy leopard watching us from the dark behind our tent in Central Kalahari, elephants stepping over our tent ropes in Mana Pools, hippos grazing on the green grass in front of our tent in Nkasa Rupara and monkeys trying to steal our food In Hwangwe, but nothing turned out as a bad situation. If you… Read more >

FOUR PRETTY COOL INVENTIONS!

A new year brings new challenges, travels and discoveries. Maybe it is a good idea to enlighten you of some pretty cool inventions coming from South Africa – some of it you will probably recognize. 1) The Kreepy Krauly The funny swimming pool vacuum cleaner was invented by Ferdinand Chauvier from Springs. Chauvier tried to figure out a way to take the hassle out of pool cleaning. The result was the Kreepy Krauly and the first one was created in 1974. I think he was just tired of cleaning the pool and thought of all the pool sweepers out there, so he made them happy! 2) Dolosse Created by Eric Merrifield, a harbour engineer from East London. Dolosse is that large, unusually shaped concrete blocks weighing up to 20 tons that you sometimes notice on the shoreline. Initially they were called the “Merrifield block.” A Dolos resembles the knuckle bones of… Read more >

Monthly Archive: January 2018

CATCH OF THE DAY

WILDERNESS CAMPING

FOUR PRETTY COOL INVENTIONS!