Hi to you all, hope everything is well for you.
We arrived safely, settled into our accommodation, just spent abit of money on it now to make it more homely and that's made a big difference. Bought a radio now to give us abit of 'noise' to break the silence (no TV blaring which has been great).
We have a maid Prescilla, who comes in most days, tidies things away, even if we have put them away she might move them to a place she thinks more fitting! Now known as stuff being 'Prescillad' She does the washing and now does the ironing - she freaked abit when I first showed her the dinky pink travel iron I had bought, Tesco's finest! Promptly went out and bought a proper iron.....
Paul and I had the treat of staying at Ulusaba Lodge for 2 nights, it was lovely, went out on 2 game drives and a game walk, the game walk ended up being more like a 'poo hunt' seemed all we studied and saw pretty much was the different types of poo around - so, not sure if that means the reserve is pretty much a giant toilet! Was hoping to get up close to some animals.
The game drives were fab as you'd expect, can now tick off the Big 5 and plenty of other animals aswell.
The people we have met so far have been great - all happy to have us here and made us welcome. We have had a kind of 2 week induction - getting familiar with the Community we will be working in, settling into our life here and just getting the hang of it. We have to travel 1.5 hours each way from our accommodation to get to Ulusaba where we work in the staff offices at the moment, actually it's pretty much the same distance to the Community as well - half and hour on straight tarmac road and then 1 hour over pretty unmade bumpy roads through the villages, onto Sabi Sands game reserve and then through the reserve to Ulusaba.
We see a few of the animals every day - not sure what the hire care company will think when they get their car back - it's just a normal saloon so we are well and truly putting it through its paces - took out insurance waiver - good move I think!
Was funny on the drive in this morning, no lions, leopards, elephants but a tortoise walking down the dirt track. Wasn't expecting to see one of those over here - made me smile.
We've starting work proper this week, we have a couple of projects being bantered around but nothing concrete as yet - will keep you updated once we know what's what.
Our kids are fine, Emily is planning to drag her grandad out here for 2/3 weeks in December before she heads off on her own travels to Oz after Christmas, and Ed, now fully fixed from his accident last year, is off to Oz by the end of the year apparently. I phoned Emily this morning as a suprised at work, she spent the first 3 minutes crying - very helpful, just about set me off but I stayed brave!! Luckily it was because she was pleased to hear from us, not that she is unhappy.... challenge being a mum and so far away!!
Well, that's the first Blog - some of you will have seen most of the above from my email but now setting up the Blog for others to read.
Next time I'll put some photos on and give abit more info on the projects we are getting involved with.
Gx
