50th Anniversary

September the 3^rd is my parents’ wedding anniversary and this year it was their 50^th. For some time we have collaborated with my sister to make a surprise visit to them on their anniversary. These days they live in South Africa which is not a small hop from Grenada. All the practical flight routes to South Africa go via Europe so we decided to build in a trip to the Uk while we were at it.

Briefly (detail will be added to earlier blogs) we left Grenada on Thursday 27^th of August arriving the following morning. We stayed with Helen’s sister Betty for a few days before flying to South Africa with a stop over in Paris. In fact, it was three flights: London to Paris, Paris to Johannesburg and Johannesburg to Port Elizabeth. From there we took a taxi to Kichaka Game Lodge, a private lodge/game reserve where my parents were soon to arrive on what they thought was their main surprise for the day.

We managed to arrive just over an hour before them. We were able to settle in, wash and get ourselves ready before they arrived. We decided to wait by the pool pretending to be guest lying by the pool. When my parents, my sister and her two children (Max and Sarah) arrived, they were shown around the facilities. Quite hilariously they walked right past us twice without recognizing us (perhaps it was the tan). When they did notice the peace was shattered.

The surprise worked well as they had no idea we would be there. We didn’t have long before were off on a three hour game drive. The weather started off quite fabulous but, as is the case, it got quite cold as night fell. Things were well organized as we all had ponchos to put on to keep warm.

We saw plenty of animals and birds including giraffe, hippos, many types of antelope, ostrich, warthogs. The elephants seemed to be hiding although we came across a few in the dark including one large male in musk. We saw lion footprints in a few places but never the lions themselves.

Back at the lodge we had drinks and then time to wash and change before a very tasty and well presented three course meal. Helen and I both had crocodile appetizers which were not to miss.

We all had the option to take a morning game drive at 6:30. Only Sarah, Max and I went for this. This time we started off cold and warmed up as the sun rose. The dawn light made for a different show. We spent a lot of time searching for a family of elephants and the lions. We were treated to sights of lots of different type of dung but the larger animals eluded us entirely. We did catch sight of some monkeys unseen the previous day.

Before the morning was out we were on our way back to Grahamstown so we could stay with my parents. They have a wonderful home in Grahamstown and we love staying there. As they didn’t know we were coming there was a little sorting out to do but fortunately not much.

After a brief rest, Helen and I took a walk around Grahamstown to exercise off all the fine food we’ve been eating recently (and not so fine).

Dignity won’t be going back into the water until early October. We’re staying here in South Africa for two weeks then heading back to the Uk for another couple of weeks. Hopefully we’ll get to see more of Helen’s family while there.

Back in Grenada we won’t have too long to finish our boat projects. This highlights the frustration we had with our delayed parts order. We really wanted to get everything done before leaving Grenada so things wouldn’t be rushed when we return. Now we’ll have to squeeze things in and maybe delay a couple of projects until later in the year.

I’ve also added red text to previous blog entries to fill in the missing gaps.  Click this link for all the recently changed entrues. For now, pics.