Birthdays and borderposts!

Last weekend we took a road trip to Malelane in Mpumalanga to my niece’s 21^st birthday.  As we had never travelled that road before, we borrowed my brother’s GPS and early on Friday morning my husband, myself and my daughter set off in her Spark, full of the joys of life!!

Everything was great, we made good time and stopped for breakfast in Vryheid and then onto Piet Retief.  And then the trouble started.......... 

‘Mrs Garmin’ insisted on trying to take us through Swaziland all the time! Of course, we only realised this when we got to an out of the way border post!!! Not having taken our passports, we had to turn round and retrace “our steps”.  We wasted about 3 hours one way and another!!!!!  A trip that was supposed to take about 8 hours, took us 11!! Nightmare....fortunately we all kept our sense of humour and got there safely!
Once there we had a lovely time and stayed in a really awesome B&B called Mhlati Guest Cottages. www.mhlati.co.za/About_us.asp

                                                                     Breakfast area

                                                                       Our rooms

Higgins

The party was lovely, it was held in an enormous outdoor venue on the banks of the Crocodile River which is also the border of the Kruger National Park. www.krugerpark.co.za

                                                                  Crocodile River

We were so spoilt to be able to look out onto this amazing, calm scenery while setting up during the day, we were lucky enough to see Elephant, Hippo, Crocodile, Water Buck and so much more! Later that night while sitting round a big fire, we heard Lion and Hippos.  What a pleasure ......this is food for my soul!

Two cousins! Monique and Natalie

 Enjoy these photos of nature at her best!

                                                      
                                                                 Warthogs in the garden?!

We left early again on Monday morning and travelled through mist and rain but otherwise our journey home was uneventful and MUCH shorter!!!