Today I got a Red VW golf instead of the blue Opal Corsa I had before.
"Upgrade" they called it, it has twice as many doors
and half the pep, plus it kept wanting to stall. I liked the corsa
better.
Drove
to Sun City (25 deg 20.8505' South, 27 deg 05.9485' East), about 200 km
from here, only got lost once. Stopped on the way to buy african art/carving/jewelry
type souveniers. (I made a mistake here...I am an engineer, I had carefully
made a list of who needed gifts, and bought exactly one thing for each
member of my family and the administrator at work who did all the travel
arrangements for me....I didn't spend much at all, but as soon as I got
home, I thought...hey what about aunt....etc etc I shoulda bought 50lbs
of stuff to give away to anyone who struck my fancy for months to come...lesson
learned for the next trip.)
Sun City was VERY disappointing. (I, I, I ...ain't gonna play Sun City! (its a song)) it was like ONE Vegas Casino and big surf combined, except I'da had to pay extra to goto the big surf thing. That's after paying 40 rand ($8) to get in Sun City. I tried to get from one point to another and every security dude I asked sent me in a different direction, and none of them could speak english as well as the security guys in Sandton.
Pilansberg
National Park (25 deg 17.2009 ' south 27 deg 10.7845' east) right next
to Sun City was a different story! That was great!! it apparently is an
extinct volcano turned into SA 's 3rd largest national park. I paid 25
rand to get me and the car in, and just drove, I saw ostrich before I even
got inside the fence, the first animal I saw was Pumbaa the wart-hog. Then
more and more stuff, in about 10 minutes, I was 10'
to 50' from 3 elephants! (Look at the stuff they're
eating in this photo, they're just shoveling these
plants into their mouths, and the plants have nasty thorns over an inch
long!)
I saw a bazillion zebra and several antelope species, Gnu (wildebeest) were plentiful and others I need to look up. I saw monkeys, hippos, rhinos, big ground birds, no lions or leopards or buffalo tho.
I spent 4 hours driving the extremely well signed dirt roads and timed
my exit for 5 minutes before closing around dark. Watch
for photos! I took 2 or 3 rolls!
This park was WELL worth the drive up there.
Tomorrow early, I leave for Kruger.
