warrenpfo
Well-Known Member
- Joined
- Jul 21, 2010
- Messages
- 2,895
Most of us have a bucket list which can best be defined below,
a number of experiences or achievements that a person hopes to have or accomplish during their lifetime.
"making this trip is the first thing on my bucket list"
For me one of those things is to witness either the laying or hatching of turtles and so last year June we decided to book for Feb 2017 and see if we can tick off one of my bucket list items.
In deciding to go we had a few things to keep in mind the first being that Bhanga Nek is in a malaria area and our daughter who was 4 at the time of booking had to be 5 in order to take the medication and that the hatching and laying of turtles is not guaranteed and there are many factors which influence both laying and hatching so a successful trip was not guaranteed not to mention we would choose the only weekend that Mozambique would be battered by a Cyclone.....
For me the preparation and planning of a trip starts months in advance and my role is to make sure we get there and back safely which covers the vehicle, navigation, recovery and sleeping/camp arraignments. As I am blessed with 2 female traveling companions (wife Michaela and daughter Mia) I need to make sure that all eventualities are covered for otherwise the next trip may well be on my own.
On the other hand Michalea looks after food, clothing and those small things I like to call critical non essentials that us men forget or dont thing are important like sun screen, 2 ply loo role, nail clippers and salad. Mia...well she looks after Mia and makes sure her dolly named squishy is ready and that she has enough to keep her busy in the car for the trip which includes but not limited to everyone listening to her music not once, not twice but 5 times on the way up and playing eye spy and "i went to the moon and took..." until you run out of things to take or she drops off for a nap.
I am fortunate to work from home which enables me to pop into the garage at lunch and get my list of jobs complete days...no hang on weeks before we are due to depart. Michalea on the other hand works 500m from home comes home for lunch and yet still manages to have very little done the day before we are set to depart.
Stepping back a bit our party consisted of 10 adults and 3 kids all of whom where going to camp. Our booking was facilitated by Jenny Koen from Extreme Nature Tours whom I can only say great things about.
Jenny Koen
Reservations
Extreme Nature Tours
Tel: 082-857 3363 / 079-373 5461 all hours
http://www.extremenaturetours.co.za
http://www.extremenaturetours.co.za/camp.htm
http://www.bhanganek.co.za
The Monday before we left news of Cyclone Dineo broke and its safe to say the party just about wet themselves. Now I am no Indiana Jones but do like adventure and like to think I can asses a situation and make an informed decision. So after many emails amongst the party and a few to Jenny it was agreed that those who wanted to go and made it to Bhanga Nek would do so and those who chose not too would be able to move there booking to another time.
In my mind it was never even a question as to if we where going, the holiday was booked I wanted to see turtles and you only have 2 small windows in a year to do so and so let the group know we would be departing as agreed at 6am to meet at Manguzi Total Garage for 11am. A call late on Wednesday night to Kosi Lodge to find out about the weather there where having and to be told it was a beautiful evening cemented the decision for me.
Come Thursday morning i was up at 5 with a beautiful sunrise
But the car was only half packed
Now I dont like to point fingers and I hope there are others out there who can feel my pain but as much as Michaela likes the outdoors she also likes city life and so leaving for a holiday where there is no power and only very brak water to wash in we decided it would be a good idea to now wash and blow dry our hair before we left.....and to make things worse I dont know what food was being taken so I could not pack the cooler boxes and dont get me started on toiletries. We have 5 bags yes 5 of those bloody flowery little bags filled with toiletries. I have body soap which I use for my hair when we go away so god only knows what the rest is but I have been told it all needs to go.
I do my very best not to get irritated and frustrated but jeez it gets my blood boiling but I am working on it and appreciate we are not in a position to have 2 of everything so we take what we use at home and even the bedding has to come off the bed and get packed which all adds to the delay. So here I am ready to go and the 2 woman in my life are still faffing. 45min later than planned we leave which brings me to my next irritation...traffic
Which we hit and sit in for an hour until we pass the airport and get up to 110km which is the speed i like to travel at.
On the plus side the sky is blue and I am on holiday with the family so life cant be that
We pass Richard Bay and keep going only to hit some very heavy rain
It was funny because as we where approaching the rain I did think to myself did we make the right decision but time and time again is was only for 3km or so and then we where back into clear skies and this happened 4 times.
We arrived at Manguzi at just after 12pm and filled up ready for the last 30km of sand track to camp. Manguzi is a bustling town with everything you need and very friendly people we found.
Once off the main road and onto the sand i stopped to air down
Part 2 to follow shortly
a number of experiences or achievements that a person hopes to have or accomplish during their lifetime.
"making this trip is the first thing on my bucket list"
For me one of those things is to witness either the laying or hatching of turtles and so last year June we decided to book for Feb 2017 and see if we can tick off one of my bucket list items.
In deciding to go we had a few things to keep in mind the first being that Bhanga Nek is in a malaria area and our daughter who was 4 at the time of booking had to be 5 in order to take the medication and that the hatching and laying of turtles is not guaranteed and there are many factors which influence both laying and hatching so a successful trip was not guaranteed not to mention we would choose the only weekend that Mozambique would be battered by a Cyclone.....
For me the preparation and planning of a trip starts months in advance and my role is to make sure we get there and back safely which covers the vehicle, navigation, recovery and sleeping/camp arraignments. As I am blessed with 2 female traveling companions (wife Michaela and daughter Mia) I need to make sure that all eventualities are covered for otherwise the next trip may well be on my own.
On the other hand Michalea looks after food, clothing and those small things I like to call critical non essentials that us men forget or dont thing are important like sun screen, 2 ply loo role, nail clippers and salad. Mia...well she looks after Mia and makes sure her dolly named squishy is ready and that she has enough to keep her busy in the car for the trip which includes but not limited to everyone listening to her music not once, not twice but 5 times on the way up and playing eye spy and "i went to the moon and took..." until you run out of things to take or she drops off for a nap.
I am fortunate to work from home which enables me to pop into the garage at lunch and get my list of jobs complete days...no hang on weeks before we are due to depart. Michalea on the other hand works 500m from home comes home for lunch and yet still manages to have very little done the day before we are set to depart.
Stepping back a bit our party consisted of 10 adults and 3 kids all of whom where going to camp. Our booking was facilitated by Jenny Koen from Extreme Nature Tours whom I can only say great things about.
Jenny Koen
Reservations
Extreme Nature Tours
Tel: 082-857 3363 / 079-373 5461 all hours
http://www.extremenaturetours.co.za
http://www.extremenaturetours.co.za/camp.htm
http://www.bhanganek.co.za
The Monday before we left news of Cyclone Dineo broke and its safe to say the party just about wet themselves. Now I am no Indiana Jones but do like adventure and like to think I can asses a situation and make an informed decision. So after many emails amongst the party and a few to Jenny it was agreed that those who wanted to go and made it to Bhanga Nek would do so and those who chose not too would be able to move there booking to another time.
In my mind it was never even a question as to if we where going, the holiday was booked I wanted to see turtles and you only have 2 small windows in a year to do so and so let the group know we would be departing as agreed at 6am to meet at Manguzi Total Garage for 11am. A call late on Wednesday night to Kosi Lodge to find out about the weather there where having and to be told it was a beautiful evening cemented the decision for me.
Come Thursday morning i was up at 5 with a beautiful sunrise
But the car was only half packed
Now I dont like to point fingers and I hope there are others out there who can feel my pain but as much as Michaela likes the outdoors she also likes city life and so leaving for a holiday where there is no power and only very brak water to wash in we decided it would be a good idea to now wash and blow dry our hair before we left.....and to make things worse I dont know what food was being taken so I could not pack the cooler boxes and dont get me started on toiletries. We have 5 bags yes 5 of those bloody flowery little bags filled with toiletries. I have body soap which I use for my hair when we go away so god only knows what the rest is but I have been told it all needs to go.
I do my very best not to get irritated and frustrated but jeez it gets my blood boiling but I am working on it and appreciate we are not in a position to have 2 of everything so we take what we use at home and even the bedding has to come off the bed and get packed which all adds to the delay. So here I am ready to go and the 2 woman in my life are still faffing. 45min later than planned we leave which brings me to my next irritation...traffic
Which we hit and sit in for an hour until we pass the airport and get up to 110km which is the speed i like to travel at.
On the plus side the sky is blue and I am on holiday with the family so life cant be that
We pass Richard Bay and keep going only to hit some very heavy rain
It was funny because as we where approaching the rain I did think to myself did we make the right decision but time and time again is was only for 3km or so and then we where back into clear skies and this happened 4 times.
We arrived at Manguzi at just after 12pm and filled up ready for the last 30km of sand track to camp. Manguzi is a bustling town with everything you need and very friendly people we found.
Once off the main road and onto the sand i stopped to air down
Part 2 to follow shortly
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