A Journal, with Pictures

Thurs­day was our last full day at Chief’s camp and it turned out to be a full one which includes, a Hye­na fam­i­ly and Rhi­no pho­to op in the morn­ing along with some oth­er inter­est­ing species.

When it was time to return to camp for lunch we had a sur­prise. The chef and staff had set up a stir fry to order lunch, of course with a bar, in the bush.

Tomor­row we will fly on to Singita.

Joyce and I decide to have a leisure­ly morn­ing as every­one else decides to take one last game dri­ve on the way to the airstrip for our flight in the same King Air that brought us. It’s cool and we have break­fast with our fam­i­ly then see them off. We say our good­byes to the won­der­ful Chiefs Camp staff, then are dri­ven to the airstrip for our flight. It’s a short flight to Maun to clear cus­toms out of Botswana, but this time they decide to do it the hard way and it takes us an hour and a half because they inspect every bag. We con­tin­ue the hour and forty-five-minute flight land­ing at San­gi­ta lodge where we are met by our guides and track­ers. Our Host­ess wel­comes us to our com­pound, our chef has pre­pared lunch and we still leave for the after­noon game dri­ve at three-thir­ty. We come upon a small heard of Rhi­nos wal­low­ing in a water hole with both Black and White species, which is an impres­sive start. We then view some ele­phants and start to get the lay of the Sin­gi­ta land.

The first evening we join the oth­er lodge guests at the main lodge for a bar­beque. We are intro­duced to the excel­lent Sin­gi­ta wine col­lec­tion, and a won­der­ful meal cooked over the fire. We are then enter­tained by the local tribe who per­form a tra­di­tion­al dance, that includes par­tic­i­pa­tion by some of our fam­i­ly. It was a very aus­pi­cious start to our stay at Singita.

 

Sin­gi­ta Ebony Lodge is the orig­i­nal loca­tion in the 19 lodge San­gi­ta col­lec­tion of top-end lux­u­ry “camps.” The pri­vate prop­er­ty is set with­in the 160,500-acre Sabi Sands Game Reserve adja­cent to Kruger Nation­al Park in north­east­ern South Africa. San­gi­ta Ebony Lodge sits on a bluff over­look­ing the Sands Riv­er, where we had a two-fam­i­ly suite (four bed­rooms) plus com­mon area and a sep­a­rate suite for Joyce and me. Our sep­a­rate com­pound had its own Host­ess, Chef, serv­ing staff and we had two track­ers and two guides assigned to look after us. The main lodge was a five-minute walk away.  Our rou­tine was to rise at six A.M. have a light break­fast and leave on the game dri­ve at sev­en. We would stop around nine A.M. for cof­fee, cocoa or tea, and a bis­cuit, then con­tin­ue our morn­ing game dri­ve. We then would have a large breakfast/brunch around eleven and then relax or par­tic­i­pate in activ­i­ties until three P.M. We then would leave for the after­noon game dri­ve, stop for a glass of wine or cock­tail before return­ing to our lodge, where we would have a gourmet din­ner pre­pared by our chef after cock­tails. Sin­gi­ta is one of the biggest buy­ers of pre­mi­um wines in South African and they served out­stand­ing wines at every oppor­tu­ni­ty. Our Track­ers and Guides were superb and became part of the fam­i­ly quickly.

The word was that a lion pride had killed a Cape Buf­fa­lo next to Kruger Game Reserve, so we head­ed there first thing in the morn­ing. We were not dis­ap­point­ed. The pride was still feed­ing on the sec­ond day with the dom­i­nate male doing the eat­ing with two cubs and the moth­er and oth­er females still there.

We crossed the riv­er each day on our game dri­ve and saw the more aquat­ic species at the crossing.

The after­noon dri­ve serves up a big vari­ety of species.

A great day of game view­ing and enjoy­ing San­gi­ta incred­i­ble ameni­ties and hospitality.

Sun­day turned out to be a leop­ard high­light day. In the morn­ing our amaz­ing track­er Vusi spot­ted a lone leop­ard in a dense bush, it then decid­ed to pose for us. In the after­noon we fol­lowed a male as he walked along the river­bank near our camp. In the evening, again our track­er spot­ted a female near our camp who had killed an ante­lope and had hye­nas steal the kill. When we came upon the scene the hye­nas were fight­ing over the kill, and we pro­vid­ed enough dis­trac­tion for the leop­ard to steal back part of the kill. With a few more inter­est­ing ani­mals to pho­to­graph it was quite a day.

Tomor­row will be our last day and as usu­al, Our Sin­gi­ta Host, Chef and Staff pre­pare a great din­ner, with great wine to cel­e­brate a great trip.

We were nine­ty per­cent packed and had our nor­mal six A.M. wake up call and sev­en A.M. depar­ture for our last game dri­ve. One of the nat­u­ral­ists had spot­ted a lone male lion so that was our chal­lenge for the morn­ing. Vusi our track­er picked up the tracks on a road and start­ed track­ing on foot in the bush and we cir­cled to try to inter­cept our quar­ry. We soon spot­ted a mag­nif­i­cent young male trav­el­ing fast. The ear­ly morn­ing sun was low and behind the lion but we still man­aged to cap­ture some halfway decent images of this mag­nif­i­cent creature.

As we head­ed back to camp we stopped to pho­to­graph two Zebra who turned to say good­bye as we leave this incred­i­ble place. We enjoyed one last Sin­gi­ta lunch, then fin­ished pack­ing and head­ed for the airstrip. Our flight was a lit­tle over an hour and we checked back into the Inter­con­ti­nen­tal where we had a day room. Lunch, show­er and relax until our eight P.M. fif­teen-hour flight to Atlanta. We cleared cus­toms and then caught our last flight to our home air­ports. We all arrived home before noon on Tues­day, July 23. Enjoy­ing two fab­u­lous loca­tions, unbe­liev­able hos­pi­tal­i­ty and unfor­get­table safari expe­ri­ence with our fam­i­ly is a trip of a life­time. We will be shar­ing mem­o­ries for months and years to come.

The fam­i­ly start­ed gath­er­ing at the Chechessee cot­tage on the Mon­day before Thanks­giv­ing with Jen­nifer, Mike, and Alexan­dra arriv­ing from Flori­da. Tues­day Caitlin and Kin­sey arrived with Gil and Joyce and Hei­di, Gary and Brenn com­plet­ed the gath­er­ing Thanks­giv­ing morn­ing. Thanks­giv­ing day was typ­i­cal with lots of activ­i­ties, start­ing with some work­ing out at Spring Island, games, cook­ing, eat­ing, addi­tion­al games, foot­ball watch­ing, more eat­ing, more games, talk­ing, relax­ing, more eat­ing, more cook­ing, giv­ing Thanks and then feast­ing. It was a great Thanks­giv­ing day sur­round­ed by sev­er­al days of fam­i­ly fun.

Black Fri­day activ­i­ties start­ed with exer­cise for every­body with some head­ing to the gym and oth­ers enter­ing the 5K at Spring Island. Once that was done we resumed the eat­ing, games, foot­ball watch­ing Mis­souri won big, and there was some shop­ping. Gary left to coach his foot­ball team, who are in the play­offs. All but Gary went to the Oys­ter Roast at Spring Island for dinner.

 

Christ­mas week­end start­ed with Caitlin and Kin­sey com­ing to Hilton Head on Thurs­day, with Hei­di hav­ing out­pa­tient surgery done Fri­day. Fri­day Jen­nifer, Mike and Alexan­dra arrived in the evening from Flori­da. Sat­ur­day morn­ing Jen­nifer orga­nized the tra­di­tion­al gin­ger­bread house bak­ing and con­struc­tion and there as lots of oth­er hol­i­day bak­ing. Kin­sey declared that her gin­ger­bread house was hit by hur­ri­cane Math­ew, Caitlin’s was stur­dy and nice but the prize went to Alexan­dra for pret­ti­est house (pic­tured below).  Ear­ly Sat­ur­day after­noon we all trav­eled to the Chechessee cot­tage and to our sur­prise Hei­di was there recov­er­ing. Gary and Brenn arrived Christ­mas eve morn­ing. Christ­mas eve was spent play­ing games, watch­ing col­lege foot­ball, enjoy­ing each oth­ers com­pa­ny, capped off by a fine dinner.

Christ­mas morn­ing the excite­ment was high and yes San­ta had deliv­ered lots of gifts. There was lots of hap­pines, but the high­light was Brenn shed­ding tears of joy when he opened his tick­ets to the Col­lage Foot­ball Nation­al Cham­pi­onship game. We all teared up and it capped off a great morn­ing. We then had a big Christ­mas brunch then every­one enjoyed their gifts and social­ized. In the after­noon we watched the San Fran­cis­co 49ers pull off an impres­sive win over the Jaguars who were favored. We then enjoyed a tra­di­tion­al prime rib Christ­mas din­ner. We spent Box­ing day doing more fam­i­ly things, with some shop­ping, work­ing out and play­ing with new toys, before Gary and Mike arrived with Bar­be­cue din­ner. The Prado’s went back to Savan­nah on Wednes­day and Mont­gomery’s to Fort Laud­erdale on Thurs­day. It was a great fam­i­ly Christmas.

Joyce and I flew to Fort Laud­erdale the day before Thanks­giv­ing. Great flight and then time for Jen and Joyce to spring into action prepar­ing for tomor­rows feast. Din­ner out a fun Ital­ian restau­rant, eat light so you are ready for turkey? Thanks­giv­ing day was great, with the tra­di­tion­al din­ner and qual­i­ty time with fam­i­ly. Alexan­dra was in charge of the offi­cial pic­ture and did a fine job.

Fri­day after Thanks­giv­ing we drove into Mia­mi to the Wyn­wood Walls area to me Den­nis and Jill Haber and Den­nis’s sis­ter Arlene for lunch. We had a great lunch and a great vis­it. We then toured the area vis­it­ing a neat lit­tle car muse­um and tak­ing in the incred­i­ble street art.

We then returned to Jen and Mikes home, and Jen did some shop­ping (Black Fri­day) and Mike and Gil went to the shoot­ing range. Din­ner at home and Sat­ur­day we flew back to Hilton Head anoth­er great flight. Anoth­er super Thanks­giv­ing with family.

We flew to Ore­gon for two joy­ous events, the wed­dings of Bri­an Lit­tle­field (nephew) to Lyn­da Math­ews and my broth­er Mike Williamson to Lati­cia Stryk­er. We stayed in Bend, Ore­gon, where my broth­er lives, then trav­eled to Salem the site of the rehearsal din­ner and wed­ding. We stayed in Salem at the beau­ti­ful Ore­gon gardens.

Ore­gon Gardens

Rehearsal Din­ner

The wed­ding was out­doors in a beau­ti­ful set­ting, fol­lowed by dinner.

Bri­an and Lyn­da’s wedding

We trav­eled back to Bend stop­ping at the Willamette Val­ley vine­yard to taste wine and have lunch with Mike, Lati­cia and cousin Kayle. We liked the Pinot, and sent a case back to South Carolina.

Ore­gon Wine Country

On Mon­day we trav­eled to Camp Sher­man, Ore­gon for Mike and Lati­ci­a’s wed­ding in a beau­ti­ful wood­ed set­ting, fol­lowed by din­ner. Lati­cia had a fab­u­lous pho­tog­ra­ph­er who did not want com­pe­ti­tion so these images were tak­en with my spy cam­era. It was a won­der­ful wed­ding enjoyed by the whole family.

Mike and Lati­ci­a’s wedding

We returned to Bend with my sis­ter Pat­ty and her hus­band Lenny and the next day had lunch with Mike and Lati­cia. Dur­ing the week end we had the occa­sion to reunite with our fam­i­ly in Ore­gon includ­ing my three sis­ters (Suzy, Pat­ty and Tina) and their hus­bands and chil­dren as well as of course Mike. We decid­ed it was time to have a fam­i­ly reunion and include all of the east coast con­tin­gent next year. Pat­ty is in charge so we know it will hap­pen. Joyce and I got up very ear­ly Wednes­day and flew back to South Car­oli­na. It was a great week­end which we will be remind­ed of as we sip the very nice Ore­gon, Pinot Nior that is on its way.