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newsletter
December 2009
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the last newsletter of this year from a warm and sunny Balule. |
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| It’s that time of the
year again, the shops are full of christmas presents and everywhere you
can see the |
| christmas decorations. |
| December in the bush here
also means it can be very warm: temperatures above the 35 are quite
common. |
| Also in December the bush
looks lusty and green. In this month you can see the freshly born calfs of
the impala, |
| gnu, zebra and more
antelopes and we always look forward to this. |
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| Altough the weather is
most of the time very pleasant, and we can swim every day in our pool, it
is difficult |
| to get the real Christmas
feeling. |
| The whole summer feeling
feels wrong, not like what we were used in the Netherlands: the cold, dark
days before |
| christmas! Around 17:00
it gets dark, while here we had the longest day on 21 December. |
| Anyway, we have set the
christmas tree and this year |
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Santa Claus will deliver
presents for the first time at
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| Amukela, since Niels is
now old enough to understand. |
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Niels doesn’t have
mixed feelings about Christmas, and |
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even with temperatures of
35° Celcius he happily |
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wears his Christmas hat! |
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Dennis doesn’t
understand where all the fuss is about, |
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but he does enjoy it. |
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December is a busy month at our lodge, mainly
because in this month the holliday season for the South-africans |
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starts. Still we found the
opportunity to visit the
Krugerpark |
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on 4 en 13 december,
before the busy period started. |
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On 4 december we drove from Phalaborwa via Mopani |
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to Letaba, and left the park again at Phalaborwa. |
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Although not the best route to see a lot of game,
it is a |
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very scenic drive . Still we saw 3 of the Big-5:
buffalo, |
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elephants and a white rhino. |
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We also saw some waterbirds, a fish eagle and a
tawny |
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eagle. |
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On 13 december we entered the Kruger park at
Orpen, and this central section of the Kruger, all the way to the
east |
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where it borders Mozambique, is a well populated
area to see good game. Here you find the largest population of
lions. |
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This because the open plains contains lots of
antelopes, gnoes, impala etc. |
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Just after 6 km. into the park we already saw 2
cheetahs, a fantastic sighting! |
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The cheetah is an endangered specie, and in the
Kruger park alone there live an estimated 200-250 cheetahs. |
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For more infomation about the cheetah: http://www.krugerpark.co.za/africa_cheetah.html |
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Within 1 km. after the cheetah sighting we ran
into a |
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small herd of buffalo, the so called
‘daga-boys’. |
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Dagga refers to the dried mud on the skin of the
buffalo, |
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and is also the name which the locals use
for cement. |
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Two large males were
fighting with their massive horns |
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hooked into eachother. |
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We took the S106 and saw
some nice plains game, |
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(the animals which you can
often see on the plains,like impala, giraffe, zebra,
wildebeest, kudu, waterbuck, warthog.) |
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Here
we also saw elephants. |
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After our picnic at the
Bobbejaanskrans viewpoint, we followed the main road to Satara and after
the coffee break we |
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took the S100 south of Satara. On this dirtroad we saw
what was the second higlight of that day: a leopard! |
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Later we saw more elephants and a carmine bee
eater, a beautiful bird. |
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Also special was the terrapin which we saw
crawling out of a pond.
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We had a great day, and it is our pleasure to
inform you about the nicest routes in the Kruger park, which can be
done |
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as a daytrip from our lodge. |
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Awesome were the lionkills (animals killed by
lions) |
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which took place close by
our land, and on land of friends. |
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The first time lions killed 2 buffalo’s in 1
night! |
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We saw the lions while feasting on the buffalo. |
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The second time when lions killed an animal, it
was |
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rewarding to sit on the terrace at Amukela. |
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First we saw a buffalo drinking at the waterhole,
and after
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our guests had their dinner we went to the |
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star-deck to observe Jupiter and nebula’s
through the 10” skywatcher telescope. |
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Suddenly we heard the
sound of galopping giraffe, and after 15-20 minutes we noticed the
growling lions, and it all |
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happened in our backyard! |
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We decided to take our
guest (his wife went to bed early) and went in our old Landrover to look
for these lions. |
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We got lucky: 15 lions
enjoyed their freshly killed giraffe. This was an absolute higlight of
2009, also since we discovered |
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the kill ourselfes. |
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And then their was Dennis
turning one year old. |
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On 15 december our
youngest bushboy celebrated his 1st |
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birthday, and that was
done with cake and presents from the |
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family in the
Netherlands. |
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Niels helped unwrapping
and Dennis enjoyed this even more |
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then the presents itself. |
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He was very keen on
tasting the cake. |
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It was lovely to see this
little man eating his cake J |
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From the sunny bush we wish you all a happy
christmas and all the best for 2010! |
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Corné, Miriam, Niels
& Dennis. |
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Tinyiko, Nicolus &
Busisiwe |
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From Balule: Salani Gahle
(goodby) !
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