Tuesday, October 2, 2007

Family Vacation, Redux

After two days in Free State, the family left Tweeling for places more exciting (if you believe that places can be more exciting than Tweeling).


We all left Tweeling on Saturday morning for Tilodi Wilderness Park, a game park in the northern state of Limpopo. The park was gorgeous, and the central lounging area overlooked a water hole where rhinos, wildebeast, warthogs, reedbuck, and impala came to drink.


On our first game drive we encountered seven rhinos and were able to get scarily close to them.


Later, the big bull (the one with the stubby horn from fighting the rhinos at the other park, through the fence) walked right by the viewing deck.




We were guided on a walking tour of the park by James, who taught us all about rhino dung...


He also showed us exactly what is in impala poo...


On the walk, Kate scored a huge amount of game-spotting points by finding this tiny endangered turtle.



On the last morning, Andy was carrying his luggage to the car when he was greeted by three of the park's biggest rhinos, standing about 15 feet from our cabin. He won the "Closest to a Very Dangerous Animal award."



We couldn't find the giraffes at Tilodi, so we made a detour through Pilanesburg National Park on the way back to Johannesburg. Brian Mahady scored long-distance game spotting points by picking out this giraffe from almost a kilometer away.



Jazzed by our sighting of the family of five giraffes, we drove straight to Johannesburg and flew to the always-lovely Cape Town.



Our first day in town we drove to the Cape of Good Hope, a gorgeous drive down the coast to where the Indian and Atlantic oceans meet.



We posed for the obligatory group photo at Cape Point.



We were able to spot whales from the shore along the route. It’s the season for the Southern Right Whales to come in very close to the beach.



We all agreed that we saw more whales from that beach than we had on all of our collective whale watches. The Dads were able to study them with their binoculars…




While the Dads were watching the whales, both Moms did some shopping. See if you can spot your Christmas present…





From Cape Town, the Farkases headed out to wine country to visit some of Kate and Andy’s favorite wineries.



This photo shows Andy and Sherry at Fairview Winery, the vineyard that makes Kate’s favorite Goats Do Roam wine and delicious goat cheese.



Meanwhile, the Mahadys took the always-fun cable car up to the top of Table Mountain.



We’re told that it is always windy at the top of Table Mountain, but it was incredibly calm and gorgeous for our visit.



The Mahadys later found themselves out in Table Bay on a catamaran cruise towards Robben Island.



We had to say goodbye to the parents from Cape Town, where they braved a Cape Town – Johannesburg – Dakar – Washington D.C. – Boston plane marathon. They are still catching up on their sleep and we are wondering if there will be any other visitors before we leave in December. The Skipskop always has room available...

1 comment:

Chrissy said...

Hey Sweetie,

It looks like your family had a great time. I am so disappointed that Mark and I can't visit. When are you coming home? I am hoping to send some donations for Christmas. Any suggestions? I miss you guys.

BIG HUG

Chrissy