Josems off to Africa

On many levels, I am grateful to be writing about Ruth's and my next holiday - We're off to Africa.

Grateful that we're leaving Melbourne's crap weather for a short time.

Grateful that by the time we return, Hawthorn's season will be over and I can be filled with optimism for 2020.  (Still much work needed in this space)

Grateful that we have the resources to allow us to enjoy this upcoming holiday.

We depart Monday 19th August, setting out on a looong initial journey - Melbourne to Perth to Johannesburg to Harare to Mana Pools, Zimbabwe.  I've calculated those four flights get us to our destination after 30 hours of airline hospitality.

Nothing ventured, nothing gained I suppose!

Those who have heard me describe my thoughts on dog owners who unleash their animals on unsuspecting joggers will wonder how the hell I've been talked into spending our hard-earned retirement cash on a holiday exploring the animal kingdom.

I'm thinking I'll be documenting some home truths about the animals with whom we share this planet.  And who knows, some stark realities might just turn a few readers off from taking them on as pets.

We'll see... one thing's for sure, my life partner, Ruth will be missing her favourite four-legged animal, Coco.

Here's Coco being terrorised by T-Rex.



Coco's not looking too fussed actually.

The story behind this is that T-Rex is accompanying us to Africa.  He is the current favourite buddy of our (nearly) 3 year-old grandchild, Jack.

The plan is to send pics back to Jack of T-Rex fraternising with his successors.  I'm thinking that the lions, zebras, elephants that we'll see on safari have taken over where T-Rex's ancestors once roamed.  I'll find the truth about that and report back to you and Jack via future issues of this blog.

So it''ll  be interesting to see if Ruth can turn me into an animal lover, or whether I can show Ruth that her fondness is misguided given the "Ruthless" and single-minded nature wild animals display.

Anyway, that's it for now... I hope I get some time to describe our trip to you so that you, through our eyes, can enjoy (or otherwise) our exploits.

Feel free to contribute your own post to this blog, but bear in mind that I can react sensitively to anything about my beloved hawks or my ability to putt.

Comments

  1. UnknownAugust 17, 2019 at 5:48 AM

    Hi Julian & Ruth,

    Great job making us jealous ... not of 30+ hours on a plane (I wonder if you've depressed yourselves by adding the layover time between stops) .. but the weather + what you'll see on your travels.

    Enjoy.

    Travel safely.

    Peter

    ReplyDelete
  2. AnonymousAugust 17, 2019 at 8:44 PM

    Hi Ruth and Julian,

    Have a great trip and keep us posted . I have done a trip to Kruger National Park. An interesting experience.

    Cheers,

    Arun

    ReplyDelete
  3. UnknownAugust 18, 2019 at 6:01 PM

    Hi Julian,
    Very jealous of your latest escapade.
    I look forward to following your progress.
    Cheers,
    Cushy

    ReplyDelete

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Final day at Kanga Camp

Image
OMG.  Travelling has its rewards, but, it has its dangers too. For example, our doc talked to Dr Google, who advised that we take anti-malaria tablets.  Sounds good eh? One capsule of Doxycycline was prescribed to be taken each morning.   Today was my third morning of downing one of these.  So instead of making me feel healthy and safe, man, did I feel terrible. And of course everyone you travel with is an expert – the consensus was that it was the malaria pills that made me feel sick.  Oh and when Linda heard the name of the pills, she tells me they are famous for making people ill. So now I have ceased the anti-malaria medication - lets hope I get to feel better soon, but I don't get malaria either. Maybe it was that I wasn’t feeling well, or maybe I’m just a grumpy and cynical old fart. I don’t know, but when our guide, Cliffy, who is a real fountain of knowledge, stopped for the first time on our game drive outside a hole in the...
Read more

Cape Town

Image
I suppose every international tourist needs to spend some time in at least one big city. So our time has come - a few days in Cape Town. We did it tough, staying at the Table Bay Hotel, following Barack Obama's lead. It's right in the heart of the waterfront: Here's the view from our bedroom window: That's Cape Town's iconic Table Mountain you can see.  Here's a better view: We took a cable car up to the top of Table Mountain... great views of Cape Town from up there: It was quite relaxing walking around the top of Table Mountain, although a little dangerous if you wanted to take some good pics: There was a lot of poverty on display around Cape Town.  There are a number of shanty towns which look overcrowded and quite sad - Dr Google says there are 150,000 people living in these corrugated iron townships, but I'm guessing this is a wild under-estimation. Yet they spent about R4bn (about A$400m) building this soccer stadium: G...
Read more

Melbourne to Perth

Image
Holidaying in this technological age is somewhat testing.    Oh so much to pack. And with weight restrictions and all – well, there’s a lot to consider. The key consideration for me is to ensure that I don’t disappoint you, my readers of this blog. Yep… I’m doing this for you. Given we have a 20kg limit on one of the flights we have scheduled, is there anything here that I can leave out? Nope. After packing and repacking, I managed to get it down to 26kg, so it all will boil down to my ability to talk my way through the airport staff in Zimbabwe at Harare Airport.     That will be our fourth flight. So not too long to wait to find out how that all turns out. Putting that behind us now, we’re off. Melbourne airport is wet and cold.   A number of flights to Sydney have been cancelled, and the announcement tells passengers that those affected by the cancellations should find accommodation in Melbourne- there’s no ability t...
Read more