Larry’s Travels – South Africa Part 2

Larry Travels to Africa – again!

South Africa sounds like such an interesting place to visit – you know they have all sorts of wild animals lions, hippopotamus, giraffes and the like and we weren’t disappointed on our recent trip to that country. We got to see quite a few wild animals on the weekend of our visit to FCE Technical Services, our South African distributor.

Loraine Lundall and his wife, Annelize, were excellent hosts for Chris Robbins and I. While the week was set aside for conducting training and visiting customers, the weekend was a whirlwind tour of the area near Pretoria to see Africa’s beautiful scenery and wildlife.

We stayed Friday and Saturday night at Mahala View Lion Camp. Leon van Biljon, the proprietor of this camp has three lions that he houses on his grounds. He has several chalets and cabins to rent. Chris and I stayed in a cabin within the lion enclosure. The cabin was fenced of course but the lions were just a few feet outside the fence. The accommodation was rustic but enjoyable. The meals that were served were excellent.

Leon is an excellent educator on the life of lions. We learned a lot from him during the visit.

For me, the highlight of the whole visit to South Africa was when we went on a game drive in the Dinokeng Game Reserve. The drive in an open Land Rover started at 6:30 a.m. Sunday morning. It is winter in South Africa and I hadn’t been outside before the sun rose but I was soon awakened by the cold on my face as we began the drive. The thermometer was somewhere in the 30s. Thankfully, the guides had hot water bottles and blankets for each of us so the drive was much more bearable.

The variety of wild life in the game reserve was amazing. We saw a wide range of birds: hornbills, ostriches, blue starlings, black and white crows guineafowl, and grouse to name a few. We saw a white rhino, impalas, warthogs, giraffes, jackals, kudus, waterbuck, blue wildebeest and zebras. They were all able to roam the range unimpeded and some were very close to us. I took 1400 photographs in the week’s visit.

The African “bush” is amazing in its beauty. The tree variety was even wider ranging than the animals. The trees were mostly without leaves since it was winter but the unmistakable familiar shapes of those seen while watching National Geographic were obvious. My favorite is called the burkea. It is a flat topped wide canopy tree that is very majestic in its beauty. It seemed like most all of the trees have some type of thorn on their branches.

The people, the food and the beauty of the land were all things we’ll not soon forget about our trip to South Africa. Above all, our hats are off to our wonderful hosts, the Lundalls for their great hospitality.