A pause to review, recharge, renew (and some random photos)

On the road through the Free State, January 2016

When are we ever sure what tomorrow, next week, next month or the next year is going to bring?

I know that in two days I'll be in Kruger on a private trip/holiday/course and then travelling the Garden Route to Cape Town in the first 2 weeks of February.

After that..............??

It's quite liberating, hitting the pause button on life, and letting the ideas, inspirations, thoughts roll through the mind.

The only thing I know for sure is that I won't be looking for more guiding work this year - I want to spend some time exploring my country, my continent and maybe my planet.

I'll definitely want to share with you, my loyal readers, whatever I do - it just won't be as a Safari Guide.

To keep you entertained in the meantime, I'll share with you on this blog the photos from my archives that  I've been posting on my Facebook page (so apologies to my regular Facebook followers) - with the little blurb that goes along with them.

This is the selection from this last week.......

Fridays are Rhino awareness days. So I started my sequence of #animalphotooftheday postings last week with this picture taken in 2012, somewhere in or around Kruger.

We were very priviledged to witness this endangered Black Rhino drinking at a waterhole. He posed quite beautifully for us too!

Cape Cormorants at Cape of Good Hope  (November 2015)

Not the best photographic conditions but I liked how this one came out after a little editing!

A rather magnificent "hopper" found in the vineyards of the Breede River Valley, Western Cape (October, 2015)

This is an "oldie" - taken in Kruger NP in 2008, but it's still one of my all time favourites.....

Baboons by the Sabie River - July 2008

Hot summer afternoons....
On tour over Christmas, our normal 2 night stop in Hermanus was changed to Pringle Bay due to accommodation issues.
This little beach had incredible views across False Bay. On the horizon you can just make out the Cape Peninsular  (Pringle Bay, Western Cape, December 2015)

The early morning hunt..... we were very lucky to spot this cheetah (one of a 2 male coalition) on an early morning game drive!  (Kruger National Park, July 2015)

Going up Table Mountain is a "must" for any visitor to Cape Town.
This is a view from the cable car on the way up - Lion's Head on the left, Sea Point below and Table Bay with Robben Island in the distance.

February 2015

The misty sunrise one morning reminded me a little of the sunrises I use to see over the Indian Ocean when walking the dogs before work in Ponta do Ouro, Mozambique.
I plan to be back on the beach before too many more months pass!

Mozambique, June 2011

I'm looking forward to planning a diving trip to Sodwana Bay this year, so I've been having a look at some of my underwater animal pics.
Anton's Reef - at the southern end of "2 mile" reef, always has spectacular shoaling fish.

Always makes for a good photo, even with my "limited" underwater camera ;)

Sodwana Bay, Kwa-Zulu Natal, January 2007

And moving away from Africa..... I last visited the US in 2007 and I've done very little with the photos from that trip. I had an amazing holiday and had a huge amount of fun playing with my first DSLR camera.
Staying in New York with a "local" meant that we did some stuff not quite on the usual tourist check list - like walking across the Brooklyn Bridge...

New York, June 2007

I'm often asked by my safari clients what my favourite animal is.
A short answer is that I don't have one. Like most things in life, it all depends on the last encounter, highlight or experience with any animal in "the wild".
If there is an exception, it would be the African Elephant. Any day I spend in an African wilderness or conservation area without seeing an elephant seems, somehow, incomplete.
This magnificent bull elephant we saw facing off with another bull on the sand banks of the Letaba River. (I posted about it previously on this blog way back when...Shadow-fight

Kruger National Park, March 2013