Training Log Archive: maprunner

Mike is so good to me. I have a 2.5+ year streak of orienteering at least once a week, and it was in danger of coming to an end today. My criteria for logging "orienteering" is 1) find at least one point on 2) a map made for orienteering. So Mike made a little map of the B&B property, and drew a course for me. And I went orienteering this week! route

Then we had a leisurely drive up to Joburg, on good roads for a change, to visit Paul and Tania Wimberley. They are two orienteers that we emailed about the local event, and they very kindly offered to put us up for the night. We didn't know what other treat was waiting for us: a gourmet meal prepared by their daughters, Heather (age 12) and Sarah (age 10). It was delicious, and well presented. Sarah even set the table with place names telling us where to sit! It was a great evening, filled with lots of good conversation.

C • Mike... 1

Hiking at Monk's Cowl. I was looking forward to hiking in the beautiful Drakensberg mountains. Unfortunately, we had the only rainy days of the trip while we were in this area, and the mountains were hidden in the clouds! But we still enjoyed hiking around one park, seeing waterfalls and baboons. This was a beautiful area, and the scenery kept changing, so it always seemed new. The low clouds and fog also added to the beauty of the trip.

We did two long loops, then came back to the car, ate some food, and started out again. Unfortunately, this route was all up hill, and my body could only do so much after two weeks of sitting. I asked Mike if we could turn around before reaching our destination (the Sphinx) and he very nicely agreed. All in all, a very nice day.

We headed back to the B&B for a nice dinner and a relaxing evening. It was good to spend these days out of the car. Added some real relaxation to our trip.

C • Don't forget 1

Another long travel day, as we headed towards the Drakensburg mountains. We drove across Swaziland, which was quite pretty. We were stopped by the police, which turned out to be a seat belt check point.

We crossed the border back into South Africa, and things changed immediately. We turned a corner,and suddenly the road was a complete mess, with major potholes. I had to slam on the brakes and move slowly through the obstacle course. And then we were stopped by the police again, this time to check for contraband. Later, we found out that police corruption is rampant, and that they were probably looking for bribes.

We arrived at our B&B, which was on a really nice property. We walked around and explored (accompanied by their two beagles) and I was inspired to do a few sprint drills.

Up early again for one last game drive. We saw the first cheetah from yesterday, and this time he had a fresh kill! We parked 10 feet away and watched him eat. (Interesting fact: cheetahs only eat fresh meat, so they have to eat their kills in one day). Also saw a beautiful male lion, just hanging out in the shade. Finished with giraffe, zebra, kudu. And impala, which I also found to be very beautiful.

This was the end of the safari part of our trip, and we headed back on the road. Once again we had to drive through the crowds of people walking along the pothole-filled roads. Mike had the worst driving stretch today. He even saw a man riding a shopping cart down the middle of the road!

We made our way to Mbabane, Swaziland. It happened to be half way to our next destination, and I'm not adverse to adding a new country :)

It was surprisingly different than South Africa. Everything looked more prosperous and organized. The road signs were certainly much better!

A quick note, now that I have wifi access again. Trip has been beyond amazing so far. Saw elephants, zebra, giraffe, lions, leopards, etc. Hyennas eating a dead hippo; baboons playing in the trees; lions mating. All from the safety of our car.

It's a bit tough to sit all day. I have managed to Orienteer at the botanical gardens( on a real O map) and two short sprints around the camps using park maps. Plus a few ranger- led walks in the bush.

Check out spike's log for a short video of the lions we saw today.

A full day at the Arathusa Lodge, in the Sabi Sands private reserve. Your schedule is not your own here, but they certainly take care of you. Wake up call at 5:30. Tea and coffee before getting on the truck. Dawn game drive. Stop for tea and coffee during the drive (they pull out a small table and table cloth, really!). Then back to camp for breakfast. Followed by a guided walk. Then a few hours rest before lunch at 2. Followed by tea and cakes at 3, and leave at 3:30 for the evening drive. Stop for a "sundowner" drink out on the drive (tablecloth again) before returning to the lodge for dinner. The food was delicious and the service was great. But it's more than we're used to (someone carrying our bags; offering us hot towels when we return from the drive; making up the bed several times a day; etc.) I'm glad we tried it, but I won't do this again.

But there is a really good reason to stay at a private reserve like this: access. When we saw the lions in Kruger, we could park close to them, and watch them cross the road, but once they moved into the bush, we couldn't follow, and we moved on. Not here. The trucks followed the lions, through the bush. Off road. Knocking away obnoxious vegetation (we were in an open truck, no sides or cover) as we bumped along. At first I thought it was a bit much, but then we tracked a group of 7 lions as they searched for prey. Fascinating to see how they worked together. And we were just feet away from them the whole time.

Also, there are many other lodges in this reserve, with guided drives all out at the same time, communicating by radio. When we saw the lions, we alerted the others. And when they saw some leopards, we rushed off to join them.

They were a mating pair (leopards are usually solitary). Again, we were able to follow them for ~15 minutes, just watching them move and mate, from 10 feet away. This was a first; we hadn't seen leopards in Kruger (although it's possible to see them there). Short video of the leopards mating.

The evening drive was just as amazing. First we were alerted to a cheetah sighting, and we rushed off. It was just lying there in the shade, not doing anything, but it was still so amazing to see. They are very rare (only about 250 in the area) and we had not seen one in Kruger. We eventually moved on to see elephants, warthogs, zebra, buffalo and rhinos. And then we got another call.

We rushed off to see a second cheetah! This one was moving, so we got to see how truly beautiful they are in motion.

What a fabulous day!

Had time for a quick run around Lataba before we left Kruger Park this morning. Saw bushbok again. route

I am so glad we did Kruger on our own, and I highly recommend it to others. We thought we would have to pay a fortune for a group safari, but then we discovered the option of doing it this way. It was easy to plan and execute, and pretty inexpensive. Compared to Europe, the food and housing costs are much lower. Gas was expensive, but we paid only $300 for a rental car for 14 days. I encourage anyone who thought they couldn't afford a trip like this to reconsider (admittedly, though, the airfare is a big hurdle).

Having said that, I admit I was curious about the "typical" American safari experience, i.e. attending an expensive, all-inclusive private resort. So we booked two nights at the cheapest place we could find (which was still outrageous).

But first we had to get there. You would think that two intelligent orienteers would have planned and mapped out the route to their next destination, but we didn't. To be fair, Mike probably thought I had printed out the maps (I'm the trip organizer). Instead, all we had were vague written directions from the website, which included helpful things such as "in about 10K, turn left onto a gravel road".

There are no road signs here. Needless to say, we got lost. We were deep in rural South Africa. With no map, no cell coverage and no GPS. We had to stop and ask for directions a few times. We met some very nice, but very poor, folks, some of whom did not speak English. It was fascinating to go into their shops, which were bare wood shelves with just a few items. One place had a phone, that we could use, if we paid by the minute. We tried to connect with the lodge, but we lost the phone connection.

Mike tried hard to get good directions and to draw a sketch map, but it was difficult. We'd get vague instructions again, like drive "past the hardware store". No one could give us distances. The knew the names of the villages we would pass, and that was their only frame of reference. However, I will stress that everyone was very nice and tried to be helpful.

By now we were both pretty stressed, because we don't like being lost, and it was getting close to sundown. You don't want to be driving around lost in the dark in South Africa.

Finally we talked to some folks who assured us we were pretty close to the road we wanted, and they were right. We made it to the lodge just as the sun was going down. And just in time for a drink, which I needed badly!

Up bright and early for a guided walk. This was at a faster pace, and we got to see more of the bush. It looks so thick and scrubby, but it's much more open while you're walking around. It was cool to see so much evidence of animals (mostly dung) to realize how much activity goes on that you don't usually see. Our main guide on this trip was very knowledgeable about the plants and their uses, and was more interesting overall, than the river walk guide.

In the afternoon, we drove on towards our next stop, Lataba camp. We were told to stop at a certain pull-out on the river to watch some hyena at a hippos carcass. This was cool to watch, although it was further away. Which was good, because when the wind shifted, you could smell rotting hippo. It is not a pleasant smell.

I should mention the sounds. We could hear hippos and hyenia every night at Oliphants. And the strange birds would wake us up early every morning. Every sound was different and exotic, even the starlings :) The other people in the camp were usually quiet, because it's early to bed and early to rise kind of place. There's no TV and no wifi, so it was quiet, relaxed pace of life for these few days.

One more comment about the animals. We had seen many of these animals in zoos, but they ones in the park looked so much bigger and healthier than we had ever seen before. I think it's because they were actually using all their muscles, so they were fit and in shape :) Seriously, they all looked bigger, stronger and well fed.

Got to Lataba in time to take an afternoon walk. This was cool, because it was more of a wooded environment. There was very little underbrush. We could easily track the elephants who use this area. We even walked on a significant (and literal :) elephant trail. This time, the two guides took turns talking about different plants and tracks and dung and animal tracks. This was the best walk by far.

Near the end of the walk, we stopped to look out at the river. There was one hippo in the water near us, and the rest were upstream. The first one saw us and started making all kinds of noises and displays (like yawning, which shows us how big and strong his teeth are). Soon, several other hippos came down to join him. They were evidently trying to scare us away from their territory, which was kind of cool. They gave a rousing chorus of celebratory shouts when they succeed in chasing us away (ie, it was time for us to go since the sun was going down)