More than a month ago, on 1 May 2015, I once again visited Marievale Bird Sanctuary. This was now my second visit, and true to form, things were different this time. I still haven’t seen the whole sanctuary, but I did enjoy my visit very much.
Here are a few photographs…
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| Grey Heron |
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| African Spoonbill – This was the first time I saw this one. |
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| There is more to photograph than just birds! |
For more photographs of this visit, go to my Flickr album.
For a long time, some years ago, 2 of my friends and I used to have breakfast together once a month on a Friday morning. Then I changed jobs and needed to travel 50Km (31mi) to work, and the same happened with one of the other two, and the breakfast fell by the wayside. But, then a little more than a month ago we decided to start it up again, on a Saturday morning! So, we had the first one last month, and then yesterday we had the second one. However, yesterday’s breakfast took on a different slant to just being a breakfast. Two of us like photography and use proper equipment, and the third uses his iPad (and some iPad apps) to come up with some creative photographs. So, iPad Man, his name is Drix, came up with the idea that we should have breakfast at Rietvlei Nature Reserve this month, and then he would drive us around the reserve so that the other two, Mark and myself, could take photographs of the wildlife at Rietvlei. It turned out to be a great morning for each of us!
Here are a few of the photographs that I took, and you can see more at my Flickr account of this visit.
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| This mongoose, and his little pal, were not bothered by our presence at all! |
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| Have you ever tried to scratch your ear with your foot like this Springbuck? |
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| The Cape Longclaw really makes a pretty picture! |
Rietvlei Nature Reserve is one of my favourite places to visit. It is close to home, and there is enough to see. Early mornings provide for great sunrise photography. One thing is for sure; every time you visit, you will not get to see everything it has on offer. There are some animals there that I have never seen, such as the cheetah and otters. Anyway, here are a few pics from this visit, and if you want to see more go to the album on my Flickr account.
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| When I walked out of this bird hide, I simply turned around, liked what I saw and took the shot. For some reason, this is my wife’s favourite. |
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| This Waterbuck was hoping that I couldn’t see him. |
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| A beautiful Common Fiscal. |
This post is related to my previous post—Bourke’s Luck Potholes - 2015-05-10—as it is part of the same weekend away in Sabie, Mpumalanga (Lat: 25° 5.914'S, Long: 30° 46.735'E). On the Saturday of our weekend away, my wife and I visited the Sudwala Caves (Lat: 25° 22.557’S, Long: 30° 41.555’E) and the Mac Mac Falls (Lat: 25° 0.041'S, Long: 30° 48.986'E).
We stayed over at the Jock-Sabie Lodge (Lat: 25° 5.876'S, Long: 30° 46.682'E). It is a lovely place to stay at right in the heart of the town of Sabie. It is very neat and comfortable, and they make a mean breakfast too!
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| In the background is the restaurant area of the Jock-Sabie Lodge. |
After we had a delicious breakfast at the lodge we headed out to the Sudwala Caves. I enjoyed visiting the caves. The rock formations, stalactites and stalagmites had really interesting shapes and sizes.
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| Interesting formations in the cave. |
After we finished the visit in the cave we went to the dinosaur park next door and ran into this guy!
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When we finished here we went to the Mac Mac Falls. It was already late afternoon. I had heard of these falls so many times, so I was very excited to finally get to see the falls. However, I was very disappointed when I finally got to see the falls. First, you can’t get near them. Second, you get to see the falls from behind a high fence that you need to peer through. Third, with the number of visitors, you have to jockey for a good position if you intend to take any photographs. Fourth, at this time of day the sun sets right behind the falls. In the end, I didn’t have enough time to set up properly in order to get good photographs. My intention was to take long exposure shots of the falls, but with all the people there I didn’t want to occupy the best spot for too long.
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| I took this photograph with shutter speed of 1.3 seconds, aperture at F29 and ISO at 100. |
All in all, my wife and I enjoyed the weekend away and definitely go back to this area. There is just so much to see that we never got to see!
To see the rest of the photographs from this day, please visit this album on my Flickr account.
A month ago my wife and I had a weekend break in Sabie, Mpumalanga (Lat: 25° 5.914'S, Long: 30° 46.735'E), an area in South Africa where the main business is trees. Yes, they grow thousands upon thousands of trees in the region that are used mainly in the paper making business. The region is one of the most beautiful regions in South Africa!
My wife had to do the driving, since I couldn’t drive at the time because of all the coughing. I would suddenly get these coughing fits that would completely rob me of oxygen, making me go light-headed with momentary blackouts. I couldn’t sleep in the car as I was the navigator. We eventually arrived at the lodge at about 21:00! After unpacking, I first had to nebulise. Saturday and Sunday morning I first had to nebulise before we went out for the day.
So, even though I was sick, and being in this beautiful area, I just had to take photographs. One of the most amazing places to visit is Bourke’s Luck Potholes (Lat: 24° 40.447'S, Long: 30° 48.646'E). These potholes are truly amazing, and here are some of the photographs I took.
For more photographs of the Bourke’s Luck Potholes, please visit my Flickr account. In the past we used to be able to make slideshows of albums to embed on web pages and blog posts, but it seems that it is no longer available. I also tried some third party Flickr slideshow generators, but none worked.
