"I spotted an elephant," said my 5-year-old daughter. "It had a long thing, was small, and brown." This became the highlight of our weekend as we all tried to guess the animal that filtrated our kid's imagination.
This past weekend took us to a remote town an hour out of the city we live in; Utrecht. Dotted with dilapidated Victorian homes and stores, Utrecht holds KZN's only unfenced game reserve, with leopards leoparding to boot!
BATS
We stayed over for a night in a humble - OK no - rustic (very rustic) rondavel with a suspicious thatched roof that lived up to our expectations. There was no need to head out and explore nature. Here, it came to us in the form of bats putting on a performance at 2am. All part of the experience, right?
BOLTS
When I say nature came to us, there's more! As the sun sunk behind the hills, we were guests to a traditional, African summer storm. Beautiful - until lightning struck just meters away, sending us all into a frenzy (and some to the bathroom). While this moment was frightening, it was also invigorating witnessing the magnitude of the elements.
BASS
The nature that DID NOT come to us: fish. Gosh, we spent hours tending to rods and reels, with the promise that, "This bait will attract fish, no problem." But we do get an A for effort, and boy did the kids enjoy hanging around the dam, not an iPad or Xbox in sight!
All-in-all, this was an outing for the books. Think tea and rusks with the view of the Balele mountains, baboons barking in the distance, and the scents of firewood and coal as the campers light fires for braais.
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