Johannesburg and housesitting, so far so good

At Walter Sisulu National Botanical Gardens

We are bonding with Willow, on her terms. She did come in just as Brian was finishing the last blog and we did both get strokes. This may not sound much, but Cat’s dad hasn’t had strokes, and apparently she hates Cat’s boyfriend, so B was doing well. She has a very fixed routine, up at 05.00 (yes, really) wanting breakfast and for her window to be opened. She is then in and out, mostly out till about 20.30 when she comes in and her window is shut. When it’s hot she throws herself onto the cool tiled floor, happy to be stroked. Now it’s a bit cooler she is spending a bit of the day on her blanket under the bed where it’s hard to reach her. Come the evening she’ll spread out on either our bed or the spare bed taking up more space than imaginable for a small cat, before retiring to the spare room for the night. This morning she actually worked out it was raining, so did come onto the bed with us for half an hour before deciding she really needed to get on with her day! She is a cutie though, with the most amazing coloured eyes and we are really enjoying spending time with her.

Willow cat cooling off on the tiled floor

Looking quite cute

We had a visitor on Christmas Eve, Gabby, Cat’s friend who has very kindly said we can spend a couple of nights at her place, while she is in the U.K., between leaving here and heading up to Victoria Falls. She was just dropping a couple of things off but it was really good to meet her. Steak was our first home cooked meal, many things seem to be similar in price to home, but a T bone steak big enough for us both to share was just over £2.00, yum.

Hiding under the spare bed

Christmas day swim

Christmas Day we went for a swim in the pool, just because we could, another first for us. It was actually very pleasant and a great way to keep cool. Then on with the serious business of Christmas lunch. Roast chicken, pigs in blankets - I’d bought a Borewors sausage for another meal which was huge, 500g, in one sausage, so didn’t think we’d miss the end if I chopped it off to wrap in bacon! Roast veggies, no stuffing though, and then someone on the radio mentioned bread sauce, there was a bit of old baguette that had been left on the side, so I whipped some up. It was so good we had it twice, roast veggies, pigs in blankets, rest of the bread sauce with cold chicken, well it’s months since we had a roast!

This was the first attempt. I put the camera on a balcony wall on 10 second timer. I had to run down the stairs, across the lawn, dive into the pool and swim across. I just made the dive before it clicked. I just made it on the one above

Our Christmas dinner

Boxing Day we thought perhaps we’d better go out, so we went to a local view point, at the eco park (location: 26°08'41.8"S 27°58'08.0"E). Not sure why it was an eco park, but it was a great view with a little walk. Cat, Roger and Marion popped in on Friday to swap clothes from their safari/game drive stuff as they had spent Christmas at the Pilanesburg National Park, and are spending the rest of our sit here in a villa they have rented near Cape Town with some other friends. 

View from the Northcliff Ridge Eco Park. The sign said 'Beware, rock climbers below' There were none there and, in any case, it looked pretty easy

Arriving at the Walter Sisulu National Botanic Gardens

We were enjoying just relaxing as it was really very hot, but time will fly by, so Saturday the plan was the open top bus tour of Johannesburg. Except the day dawned much cooler, cloudy, the view was lost in the mist so we decided perhaps not! Instead we went to the Walter Sisulu (an anti-apartheid activist)National botanical gardens (location: 26°05'22.5"S 27°50'32.5"E). It was lovely, lots of families with big picnics, an impressive waterfall and lots of little paths amongst lovely gardens. We just bimbled about, enjoying the walk in a very pleasant 21 degree temperature. 

Interesting bug crawling through the undergrowth

The photogenic Ruimsig waterfall at the end

We finished up at the stalls at the entrance, don’t get the feeling they are there all the time, but there were a couple of food wagons, one of which served bunny chow. Bunny chow is a Durban specialty, it’s curry (mutton in this case, no rabbits in sight) served in the end of a loaf of bread, so the bread is the bowl which you eat. This was originally because Black or Indian people couldn’t eat from the same plates as whites, as explained to us by the white South African. We had a long chat with him, or rather he with us, but he was very interesting. He confessed he’s racist, but it’s very difficult as it’s how he was brought up, so they just need his generation to die, so that their children can move on...!

Some of beautifully kept Botanical gardens

He was however very nice to us, rushing over to where we were sitting on a bench with our curry between us, bringing extra napkins and a second fork. The fork was no use however as by then Brian was so covered in curry from tearing off bits of bread he could touch nothing. Obviously there are no pictures of the state he was in.... Our man then rushed back a second time with two bottles of water, “on the house as you’ll be thirsty after that” as I said, really very kind.

I've got loads of good photos of these Weaver birds (thank you for identification Sarah and Helen) and with this guy weaving his nest I guess that's how they got their name. Interestingly, a man with a group of kids walked by on the bridge we were on and starting telling them all about them, which we thanked him for. Here's a bit of what he said: this is the male, the female has much duller brown feathers. He frantically builds his nest (there were loads of them doing this) to impress the female. If she doesn't like it she pulls it apart. Here they were building over a river and our man said its to stop predators coming up from below. They build the nests on very thin, flimsy branches and apparently its to stop snakes slithering down to capture young 

Here's another one at the very start of his nest building

Rain overnight and overcast again today, but I don’t mind that, we’ll get loads of sunshine I’m sure. We had an amazing thunderstorm on Christmas Eve too, if we can just not get caught out in one of those that would be ideal!

Groups of people staking out their picnic spots in the park

Nice flora too

This was taken from a bird hide in a secluded bit of the park. Other than loads of Weaver birds we only saw some largish fish swimming about

Unusual (to us) tree blossom with a bee collecting pollen

And in a part of the park restaurant we could see a wedding going on. What a great setting

Jackie with Bunny Chow lunch in hand being talked to by our very friendly South African chef

'You have to try one while in South Africa' he told us. It was really nice (and very filling), but incredibly messy to eat. There are just over 18 Rand to our £, so 80 Rand is about £4.50. It's really hard getting to grips with the exchange, 18 is not an easy number to divide by, but we're getting there. It's the second time we've been enthusiastically introduced to local foods, the first time was when we were walking out of the Super Spar supermarket with bags of stuff past a small Biltong shop packed with people. A guy inside excitedly waved us in and when he found out we were from the UK, only just arrived and knew nothing about these foods he went round grabbing samples for us to try. It turned out he was only a customer but he got the woman owner involved who carried on with the enthusiastic explanations. We bought a bag of cured beef which we thought we could munch with a G&T in the evening. 'How much would R50 (about £3) buy?' we asked. She piled loads into a bag for us. Well, that'll last us a while! The first man was delighted we bought something and carried on enthusing about other things, wishing us well as we left. How nice people are that we've met so far.

This was a quite impressive thunderstorm that we caught the edge of one day. Lots of flashes and bangs, but it passed quickly and then the sun came out and dried everything up again 

This little chap was watching us from the rocks on our Christmas day swim. I'm putting all these on now as (we hope ) they will fade into un-importance once we leave here and start to see exciting big animals. Willow brought us one the other day, to get a closer look at. she's also bought us a huge moth and some big bug! Homeowner Cat and her mum and dad Roger and Marion, when they briefly called in on their way to Cape Town were so excited over all they'd seen on their game drives in Pilanesburg Game Reserve. Lions, elephants, giraffes - so looking forward to it. Our man at the Bunny Chow stand told us we should see at least 4 of the big 5, the leopard is very elusive and we'd be very lucky to see one of those. The African big 5 are: lion, leopard, rhinoceros, elephant and Cape buffalo. Why isn't a giraffe or a hippo part of the big 5? They are just as big. Apparently, so I read, the Big 5 name was given by big game hunters who found the 5 the hardest to kill and the most ferocious when cornered. Tour operators picked up the phrase and used it for marketing and it has stuck. We're so looking forward to getting out on our safaris, it's exciting!