Well here we finally are! We're holed up, starting that downward spiral into retirement, about 20km from Pretoria - at our friends' Mark & Margie's hillside retreat. A bit about their home...the house is made up of about 8 split-levels and is set into a rocky hillside. It has a tree growing up through the middle of it. Birds regularly sneak in to pinch food scraps. Windows and doors have bars while the whole boundary is electric fenced - security is a big feature in these parts - partly to keep human predators out but also to keep wildlife predators in! A few years ago Mark and his 8 neighbours agreed to pull down their common fences and install electric fencing to the external boundaries so that they could create a reserve where game such as giraffe, wildebeest, zebra, kudu and impala can roam freely through the hills. It's just lovely, but needless to say that we are not going too far up them thar hills!
Mark's sister in law, an Aussie, greeted us on arrival here at the house...it was pouring, lots of mud and low visibility but we still managed to find the access road into the property! She had come down from Ngepi (Mark's tourist camp in Namibia, on the Okavango river) to meet us as the others are staying there for the rest of the week. On arrival she had to deal with the security systems and the capsicum sprays..one of which failed and went off in the house...spreading choking capsicum throughout the upper part of the house. Then she had to quickly cover her mouth and exit with the African guy with her who then had to drink heaps of milk to calm the throat. They couldn't get back in for 2 hours! But it reminds us that Africa is a harsh environment and a challenge!
Life here is very relaxing. We've made a couple of trips into Pretoria but don't see ourselves as rubber-necks. The shopping centres are amazing. After a few trips to the bank and then to Vodacom we've now got internet connectivity on the iPhones and Mac computer :) - so we feel connected again.
In the next week JnJ will head for Durban to swim with the tiger sharks but for now it's happiness in retirement, book immersion therapy and a leisurely start to our travels!!!
