Neil Uys Blog Site

It’s clear that when the blog goes dry things at work are crazy.
I don’t think I have had a more demanding 5 weeks at work ever. But the lessons learnt and the experience gained — invaluable.

One of my mates ( Mark ) saved me from certain implosion last weekend by taking me out of town to a beautiful piece of farm land owned by his sister.

We had no running water or any other of the typical facilities you’d expect at a camping ground and this made it eve more special.
Setup camp next to a old caravan, now home to some swallows and a few wasps. We used the tarp to collect rainwater for drinking and did a bit of “Australian” hunting.

It’s a bit of a drive ( about 7 hours north of Sydney ). We left here on the Friday night at about 11 PM and arrived there around 6 AM on Saturday
morning. I have some photos and will only attach 1 to the front page of this blog – Don’t want to offend anyone with photos of dead animals – some people still think red meat grows in packets on trees – But if you want more just click on the photo.

Anyway – The pressure at work is dissipating and there is light at the end of the tunnel ( Hallo December, I’m back )
PS. You might notice the MO – If you don’t know. The month of November is always “Mo vember” here in OZ. We grow a moustache and raise money for charity ( Men’s Health )
As always it gets shaved off on the 1st of December.

Imagine light blue water and white sandy beaches…, pitty we could only stay for a week.
We got lucky and we were upgraded to a 5 star hotel called DinaRobin ( First name of the island given to it by it’s first discoverers -the Arabs – meaning “Silver Island” )

The four of us, Linda, Anne-Marie, Victor and I made sure we made use of all the facilities available to the guests. We did some wakeboarding, sailing ( yes I did tip the boat but theres no photo of that ), tennis, table tennis, boules, relaxing at the pool and as many of the wonderfull restaurants as we possibly could.

Lucky for us the week there included a visit to Emelia and Andrew’s awesome place. We got to play terrible golf at a beautifull golf course. We went dolphin watching on a huge cat and played volleyball on Ile’de Surf.

I offered a “How to drink Whiskey” class and had a few eager students

Sam took it easy the next day, infact I think he probably won’t drink Whiskey again
Thanks to Charlene we got a nice anniversary cake to celebrate our 4 year anniversary

Did a bit of underwater walking

We spent a nice afternoon traveling up one of the rivers, swam from pool to pool and jumped a few rocks.

What is a holiday without a bit of adrenaline and adventure – Pic the biggest waterfall in the area and jump off it into a unknown pool of water.

I have hundreds of photos on this trip and wish I could put them all on – but it would take hours. I hope this will give you a idea of what a wonderfull place it is and the time we had.

Emelia and Andrew – Thanks again, you have been awesome hosts. I only hope I can return the favour here in Oz

Couple of us went to Sean and Loz’s place in Manly to watch the game there. Here are some photos.
Well done Bokke – Proud to be South African.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u416VQws0iI

You don’t know whats hot until you have been to the Zambezi in October. 43 Degrees in the shade is the order of the day and you will have to wait until at least 2:30 AM before it starts cooling down.

The trip there was as exciting as the the fishing itself. We, My Dad, Andre, Victor and I, flew to Lusaka in Zambia with South African airways as the first part of the journey. We were received there by a travel agent that helped us through customs and into a 4×4 in minutes. The service was something I have never experienced before. From there we got moved to a domestic airport where we were greated with some beers in hand. Enough time for a smoke and then into another little plane for the next leg of the journey that took about 45 min. to a airstrip right next to the Zambezi river about 10 min drive from our camp Kasaka.

Our days started at day break with a friendly knock-knock at the tent opening ( Since there is no door to knock on our guide just said knock-knock until he got some response from someone inside the tent ).

The tents are permanetly fixed with solid bathroom walls and beautifully furnished with dark wooden furniture.

We did 2 fishing trips a day, one in the morning that finished around 11 and another in the afternoon until just before dark.

The Yellow Shirt competition was won by everyone on the trip at some point in time ( Goes to the one that has caught the biggest fish to date ). Victor won with a 13 Pound Tiger.

We had a few visitors on the camp from time to time – Even got chased out of the pool once.

The last day of fishing we ended with a quick trip back to camp through the game park and ran into a nice pride of lions.

Dad, Vic, Andre – Thanks guys it was awesome !