Ithala

The whole Kistner Clan headed up North to Ithala for Carmen's belated 70th birthday celebration: Jos & Carmen (Hermann's oldies), Gitty, Sean, Saskia, Luca and us. The drive up was pretty straight forward. We came up with the grand idea of leaving when Froonchie woke up - this meant we were on the road, bleary eyed and barely awake at quarter past five - just as well the roads were empty. Three hours later we had breakfast in Hluhluwe. Froonchie has finally decided that enough is enough. After 5 months of being force fed baby cereal she now refuses to even open her mouth when faced with bowls of tasteless mush - instead she had the full Safari Breakfast - egg, boerewors, onions, tomato, toast and even a mushroom (although after 5 minutes of chewing we sacrificed our fingers to fish the mushroom back out again). She obviously takes after Hermann - the only thing better than 'egg on toast' is 'cheesy egg on toast with a side order of bacon'.

Fuelled up and raring to go, we made it to Ithala by lunchtime. The drive up was stunning. At this point I'd like to introduce all you Brits to the lexicon of South African superlatives. Things are either stunning, divine (deeviiiiine) or hectic. I've also caught myself saying 'howzitt' on at least one occaison. Nevertheless, my vote for the most irritating phrase you will hear is "I'll do it just now". That means that whatever you were expecting to be done hasn't been done at all.

Anyway I digress, back to the story of our weekend game viewing. We saw lots of zebra, wart hogs and wildebeest but not much else. There was one lone elephant on the horizon but no close encounters because the weather was way too cold - even too cold for cockroaches. However, judging by the sounds coming from our chalet ceiling, we did have a large rat in residence. Luckily he stayed well hidden. Ithala was beautiful but Hluhluwe remains our favourite game park. So much so, I managed to persuade Hermann to stop over for an extra night in Hluhluwe on the way home.