I’m sitting in the shade of a tree at Marrick Safari in the middle of the Karoo, which means we must have started our travels. It feels strangely like any other holiday right now – I’m sure that will change as two days stretches towards a month.
Air whinge. We selected two great seats (window + aisle next to each other) when we checked-in online, but at the boarding gate the smiley fellow told us we had been happily upgraded to premium economy. So we got slightly more legroom… in the middle two seats of a bank of four in the middle of the plane. Arse.
All that is in the past, for South Africa is here. The first driving day was 7 hours to cover 550km. Endless arid scrub under endless blue sky. The Karoo probably isn’t much visited, lots of empty cattle country. Marrick is a wildlife and hunting lodge with a great chunk of land. We’ve been on night and day game drives here, and we start our year of wildlife watching with the very first animal in the alphabet – an aardvark! Unplanned, but nifty eh? With the sun now baking my back (must move) it’s easy to forget how damn cold the night drive was! We were freezing in 5 layers of clothes.
Update! In a guest room in Upington now, after a shorter 400km drive. Empty road across the vast Karoo, it took exactly 4 hours. Our final night drive at Marrick showed up even more spiffy wildlife – see the next blog for a bit more detail! Maureen wore an epic eight (EIGHT!) layers of clothing and only felt a bit cold. For those who like detail: vest, t-shirt, 2 x long-sleeved top, shirt, fleece, jacket, gillet.
Just been out for a meal at Le Must, top class restaurant in the Northern Cape. Nice ambience, but huge platefuls of mis-combined flavours isn’t fine dining. Springbok, broccoli, kiwi fruit, couscous and papaya sharing a plate?!?
Related Images:
Haha trust you two to find a top class restaurant in the middle of the African Bush, confit of aardvark served in a crocodile jus on a bed of wilted confusion, still at least you’ll be looking like you’ve got 8 layers on permanently if you carry on as you’ve started!
I ~prefer~ inside seats! It makes me feel less up in the air!