Field of Giraffes

I am not sure how I am holding out, with no weekend, just non stop work but these giraffe carvings caught my eye. A field of colourful giraffes, ahhhh just made my day, the last day of Decorex for the year. I am tired that I didn't even get the stand name, oh well.

Does she like it gentle or rough?

Warning explicit content in today’s post!

Craig and Necia hosted a Geeks Board Games Day that their home this afternoon which kicked off with some tasty Thai chicken curry. Thank goodness they cared a little about me and didn’t spike the food with hot chillies as not to take my breath away, literary.

It was a great turnout of friends and family, from left to right is Lynda with granddaughter; Rebekah; Sheena and Jonathan with little Aiden; Craig and Necia; Jessica and Layne; siblings Brendon and Nicole; and finally Robynne with her back to the camera. Not in the photo is Gary who is somewhere, maybe he is on the Iron Throne.

During a break, while sitting in the sun, the conversation strayed into the lands of Westeros as most of us are fans, well most of us except Craig and Necia that is. And then it happened as it tends to do in groups of friends like this. It was during Layne’s man-bun episode that he turned into Euron Greyjoy as he stuck an action figure’s head up the arse of a poor stuffed giraffe. Why Euron the scallywag of Westeros, well it was Euron’s quote "Does she like it gentle, or rough?" in the GoT episode a few weeks back that caused those fateful words to come storming back to memory, “A finger in the bum?”

Anyways we all had a good time at Craig and Necia's, thank you to the hosts and even the cat called Siri enjoyed been pampered by Nicole. Those eyes just say it all!

Sunday Giraffe

Sunday, family time, so this afternoon Lynda, Robynne, Rebekah and I took a drive into the countryside. We stopped for a light lunch at the Neck and Deck where they have giraffes close to the restaurant. The giraffe was the exciting part but the food left a lot to be desired.

All Creatures

All creatures great and small, fat and tall, our Lord God loves them all, or does that song go otherwise. Anyway on the very last day of the year, we did another early morning start. This time we left from our base in Nelspruit and headed for Numbi, the closest gate into the Kruger National Park armed only with our cell phones’ cameras.

It was a cool start but we knew that the temperatures would hit 40 degrees Celsius so we packed lots of water. At first the animals were scarce but we camped out at every watering hole between Pretoriuskop and Skukuza. The heat forced the animals to the watering holes with even the rhinoceroses preferring to wallow in the water as if they wished to become hippopotamuses.

We saw mostly Impala followed hot on their tails were the rhinos. Yes we were blessed to see lots of these endangered animals but towards the end of the day all we wanted was to see some elephants and then we nearly drove into two large males bulls as we round a dirt track that lead to another watering hole. These two must have opened the flood gates as it was elephants we wanted, we got plenty.

The crowning point of our trip was at the very end, near Malelane on another dirt track along the Crocodile River. The Leopard just caught a monkey in front of us and calmly proceeded to walk past us carrying it’s dinner, much to the disgust of the other monkeys who stayed well back in the trees barking at the leopard.

Giraffe for Lunch

No we were not eating giraffe for lunch, but Mr Giraffe came over for lunch while we were taking a break at the Neck and Deck just outside The Lion and Rhino Park. Yes I know that there are strong allegations about The Lion and Rhino Park association with canned lion hunting. This park like many similar parks that breed lions in captivity for the tourists have this dark void when it comes to what happens to the lions once they too big to be petted by tourists. Many try to hide their hunting involvement by claiming that they are engaged in scientific research. These excuses sounds a little too close to Japan’s response on whaling.

Anyway to the giraffe that joined us for lunch, while it was nice that he joined us and all the tourists oooh’d and aaaah’d, I did notice that the lack of natural foliage for the giraffes. Yes there were a few large trees in the compound next to our watering hole but the leaves were stripped bare by the giraffes up to the height they could reach. Thankfully further back there were some teff hanging in some feed nets from the branches. I wish that there would be more veld trees for them other than the horse pellets that the tourists used to entice the giraffes closer to feed out of their hands.