And then I got ill

Today I woke up with gastro, I have never been sick while travelling before and it sucks, I did have a bad hangover once, back in 1980, but we won’t go into that now. Today we were to visit Cecil John Rhodes Grave, some bushman caves and maybe spot some Rhino. I was too sick to care. I just stayed on the bus and tried not to poo. Narelle went along and had a good day. They took them in a 4WD to the bottom of what Narelle assures me was a mountain, and they had to climb to the top. She tells me the climb was very hard, but well worth it, the paintings are spectacular.

some of the bushman paintings

Back in the 4WD and off to another mountain, which they also had to climb. The grave was just a grave, and another grave of Rhodes right hand man. But the view was wonderful. The guide explained how Rhodes cast out the two tribes that lived in the area and they were not allowed to return for 100 years, sounds like a creep to me.

For some reason my laptop cannot turn this pic and save the image, an unknown error, so just tilt your head to see Rhodes Grave, if you can be bothered...

After they came back down the mountain, and drove off through the bush and had to alight the vehicle to look for Rhino. Narelle was a little nervous about that. They walked for about an hour and saw nothing. They got back into the vehicle and went for another drive. They then went for another walk and found a mother and baby Rhino. The mother had had her horn removed, for safety, so she looked a little different. Narelle was wrapped to have the advantage of seeing them in the wild.

The mother Rhino and her baby, how awesome is that. I am jealous now, but back then i didn't care, too sick to be bothered.

They then returned to us and asked if the three of us who were too sick to go wanted to do the last part and see the Rhinos, Rosella (from Italy) and Gerald (from France) both went, but I was too sick. I could barely raise my head. I hope to get a chance to see other Rhinos in the future.

They then had lunch and we travelled to our next destination. It was a lovely resort, with a small waterhole, they had to put it in as the elephants kept drinking out of the swimming pool. We had a nice little cottage and lucky for that as I spent all the next day there. I was too sick to even feel sorry for myself. I just didn’t want to move.
Narelle and the others went off on another 4WD in the early hours of the morning (that what she calls 7am), and they were gone most of the day. Hwange national Park was where they went. They saw more elephants at a watering hole, wilder beast, Zebras, Giraffes, Squirrels and a herd of elephant with 3 baby elephants. They also saw lots of herds of Kudus. She had a good day but did not think it was as good as Kruger. They saw two big birds, one called Koribastart and the other was called a secretary bird. The guide said it was called this as when it gets its prey it jumps up and down on it like a secretary typing….

Apparently it was cold...

Wilder beast

Elephant at the waterhole

They had a great guide called Mr B, not to be confused with Mr Bean. He told them he would send an email off to the elephants to meet him at the watering hole and they did. Narelle found him very amusing and totally enjoyed the day. They stopped at a supermarket on the way home and Narelle brought a drink, but the lady would not let her take it away, she had to bring the bottle back. Apparently they have a small deposit on the bottles like in South Australia, but the South Aussies aren’t as militant about it all, if you buy the drink you can take it anywhere you like.
Last night they had a nice meal of stew that Pumy cooked up and I had some toast.

Today we visited the painted dogs, which look similar to Hyenas, but are apparently almost extinct. They were okay, but I wasn’t really up to the walk we had to do, so was exhausted when I got back to the bus. I feel okay not, just no energy and still have to stay close to a toilet.

We arrived at Victoria Falls. We all had lunch at the restaurant at the falls and it was a big disappointment. At least I finally ate something. Narelle and I walked to the falls but did not walk along them, I had no energy and Narelle was feeling her rheumatism in her foot. We came back to the hotel and we are relaxing in our room before dinner. We have a lovely room, so that is something. Most of the accommodation on this trip has been fine, sometimes the bathrooms make Narelle raise her eyes but the rooms have been fine.

My first view of the falls

That's it for now, we are off for a helicopter ride in less than an hour, so till later

Lones