Ok, now that Thom's gone back to the UK...

here's my Pilanesberg update. I'm in the orifice today, so I can send it without getting bumped off the network by the dumb-shit 3G connection.

We arrive at the petrol station just outside Manyane Gate at about 16h30, just in time for my boss to call me up with the following, almost verbatim "Steve, hi, Black Beauty here {name withheld to protect the not-so-innocent}. I just got off the phone with the guys in the States and I'm happy with our discussion, okay with your move, the rates and so on and what it means for us in SA, and I'd like to get it over with as soon as possible."

Dumbstruck silence on my end of the line... I can't believe how he's just said that to me. Yes, it's nice to finally know that I'll be joining the Global Consulting Team, but it would also be nice to know I actually meant something to him in the (too long) time I've worked for him, or that I might just be missed.

Apparently not, so fuck him...papvreter...

So we buy ice for the Capn's we'll have later and head in to Reception to book in. On the way, we pass Mankwe Tours (Sotho for Leopard) and ask if they do night drives, which they do, so we book, the tour starting at 17h30.

Might as well get it over with and we'll play the rest of the weekend by ear. At Reception, I get told I still owe them 800 bucks and I tell them I actually don't. If they'd be so good enough to check their records, the 800 bucks I already paid was on a special they had, for the entire weekend, including dinner, bed and breakfast for two people. Fuckall communication between the front desk and the reservations people. Anyway, they give us the key to the tent (figure that one out yourself) and we drive through, leave some stuff lying around so that no-one steals our braai (fancy half-drum job, unlike the rest who had puny little things - ours was going to rock later) and we have just enough time to go back to Mankwe Tours and have a quick beer before we leave on our night drive.

At this point, we find out we're the only two on the night drive and at 200 bucks each for a 2.5hr drive, I'm not really surprised...it's becoming a rip-off. So our driver, Walter, heads out into the sunset and we're looking forward to this. It's cooling off, but still a nice enough temperature for shirt sleeves.

We see the usual suspects, a few elephants, giraffes, tsesebe, tigers, and come across a site where there's about four vehicles parked, staring at something in the near distance. Turns out, there's two lions about 200m away and everyone has their 10,000,000 candle power torches tuned into them. We're so close, and the lamps are so bright, the lions are ready to pull their sunglasses on. No wonder the poor beasts were squinting into the light...probably fucked up their night vision for a couple of nights. By the way, just kidding on the tigers...there are no tigers in Africa, apart from those in zoos.

Anyway...we sit there for a short time and decide to drive on. There's a big park out there and we'd like to see more animals. About a half hour late for the expected end of our drive, we get back to the lodge, thank Walter and say our goodbyes to him, and we're off back to camp so that I can show Thom what a REAL braai is...not one of those horrible things they have in the UK with sausages and hamburger patties and the like...a REAL FUCKIN' BRAAI with steak, wors, spicy chicken wings and lots of booze!!

The braai is lit, me throwing two bags of bosveld hardehout into the flames, enough to get a good heat for the inch-thick rump steak I brought along. Needless to say, while the fire was readying itself for the steak, we were plying ourselves with a couple of drinks. I was still on the Windhoek's and Thom was still on the girly Savannah's. Eventually the fire's ready so I throw on the spicy chicken wings and the mealies and whole potatos in foil. The wings are to sate our hunger while the veggies are cooking. More drinks...

When the veg are just about done, I scrape the coals together in the bottom of the braai, get a real heat going, and throw on the rump steak. Sizzle, fuckin' sizzle...

That done, we tuck in and the juices are just about running down Thom's chin, he's enjoying it so much, as can be seen in the photo. While eating, we crack open the bottle of Captain's Organ and by the time we're done, half of it is gone too. We sit around for a bit, enjoying the bloated feeling of having had a fine meal.

There's Impala running around the camp and Thom is determined (fuelled by the Captain, no doubt) to get close to one of these oversized goats. We sneak into the long grass in front of the tent and stand still under the trees. At one point, there's a big male Impala about 10m from us. He knows something is there but isn't sure how dangerous it is. After a few Captain's, we're about as dangerous as a soaked sponge but we stand around a while looking at the beast.

About half past one in the morning, we decide to hit the sack. Thom wants to be up early for a game drive. I like this, cos I also love driving around the park looking at the beasties. We wake around 7am, not really wanting to get up but knowing if we don't we'll probably miss the best of the game viewing for the morning.

A quick breakfast and off we go. Thom's excited as all hell as it's his first "safari" and so am I as it's been a while since I was in a game park. We see all the usual suspects including elephant, rhino (probably saw all 32 of them), all the buck species, giraffe. The only ones that are eluding us are kudu, buffalo, leopard and cheetah.

We time our exit from the park almost to perfection. The gate closes at 6pm and we drive out, tired but satisfied, at five minues to six. It's almost dark at this time of day, coming into winter (or, as Thom says, "what fuckin' winter?") and we head back to camp for a buffet dinner in the restaurant.

It's Super14 Rugby semi-finals day too, and as we could pick the games up on the radio, we didn't bother leaving the park early to watch them on TV. And a great day for SA rugby it was too. Sharks and Bulls both into the final, with a number of firsts (first home final, first having two SA teams in the final, first time a SA team (Sharks) end up on top of the league table).

We have a couple of Cap'n's while Thom makes the "ET phone home" call. He's in trouble cos he's enjoying himself (go figure) so plays the drive down a bit to try and keep the peace at home. Dinner is quite pleasant, with plenty of meat for Thom and a fresh lamb on the spit to round it off nicely. Neither of us have too many vegetables on our plates (we had enough last night) as we're guys on a road trip away from home, doing and eating the things we get shouted at for when the women are around.

After a slow, pleasant walk back to the tent through the camp, listening to the buzz caused by the rugby triumphs (and the booze swallowed during the games) we settle down to finish off the bottle of Cap'n's Organ and do so quite quickly. Thom is now fortified enough to want to get even closer to an Impala and we wind up back at the edge of the long grass again. This time though, there's a rustle not 5ft in front of us. We whisper "what the fuck" to each other and the rustling stops for a few seconds, then carries on again, moving to our left. There's a path to our left about 10m away and a movement across it catches my eye. The rustling in the grass is caused by a Pangolin, totally harmelss and quite shy, going about its business of catching insects for its dinner. We try to get up close for a better look but for a metre long beastie it disappears pretty easily and we don't see it again.

Around 22h30 or so, we call it a night and head off for a deep sleep, wakened only by th dawn light coming in through the tent screens which are permanently left open. Up at around 7am again, we do the shower thing, pack our stuff into the Ranger and head off for a huge breakfast. We planned on getting out of the park by around midday for Thom to buy some curios (read: wooden giraffe) but it doesn't end up that way.

We drive to the highest point of the park and have an absolutely fantastic view of the crater (the Pilanesberg Park is an extinct volcano crater) and are actually able to see a herd of elephant, on their ambling way to a waterhole, having a standoff with a rhino that they hadn't seen slumbering behind a bush. The rhino looked distinctly pissed off at being disturbed, but backed down when the matriarch waved her ears and trumpeted at it.

Thinking that we could get to the waterhole around the same time as the elephants, we headed off down the road and ended up getting there just after them, but late enough to have to battle our way among umpteen other vehicles to get some good photos. A second herd joined this one at the hole next to them and we moved forward to watch the new arrivals. It looked like these guys were the same as the herd we'd seen yesterday, the same youngster splashing around and having a ball.

Some tosser arrives in his Nissan and promptly gets out to take some photos of the herd as it moves along our side of the waterhole and we were expecting the matriarch to come and sort him out. Alas, it never happened, as the idiot got back into the car in time. After a half hour or so of this, we decided to leave and head back to Joburg but didn't get too far.

About 1km before the exit gate, we come across a group of cars and a ranger's vehicle straddling the road, unable to let anyone pass. Everyone in the queue is swearing and gesticulating to the ranger to move his arse and reluctantly he does so...wise move on his part. It turns out, they saw a leopard in the bushes not far from where we were, so we decide to hang around, just in case. We must have been there another half hour when I saw the cat moving out from behind a tree, into full view of everyone who had stayed behind to see it. We watch it walk nonchalantly along the grass bank of the river for about 50m and then hide behind a big tree, out of everyones view. Some poncey English fucker tries to work his car right into the view we have, but a short Scots "Oi! Don't even think about it." stops him from going any further forward. He winds his window up and says something to the other ponces with him, that we can't hear. Probably just as well, we're hot and tired, and itching to move on, which we do and leave about 20 vehicles' occupants straining to get a view of the big cat through the brush.

As it happens, we're a little late getting back to Hartbeespoort Dam for Thom to get his giraffe, so we head straight back to Joburg and I drop him off at the hotel at around 17h15. We've both had a fantastic weekend, definately one of the better long game drives I've been on, and a unique first for Thom who just wants to come back and do it all again.

and do it again, we will...next time, Prince Al will hopefully be with us on the Three Amigos Reunion tour, but then we'll probably do the Kruger Park as neither of them have been there yet...

Some more pics...