clickety click - the blog

clickety click has moved...

clickey click's blog has a fresh new look and has now moved to www.clicketyclicktours.wordpress.com! Look out for the new post in the next couple of days.

Namibia September 2010

I am not sure where the past month and a half has gone, but it seems to have flown by and I still haven't managed to post a blog about the clickety click Namibia tour which took place in September.

I am still wading through editing photos and as soon as I have managed to do a few more I will give you an outline of the tour, but in the interim, I can say that it was a great trip! We had spectacular scenery to photograph in the Namib-Naukluft Park, incredible photographic hide opportunities at both Kavita Lion Lodge and Okonjima and our game drive in Etosha was simply incredible!

So as a little taster, here are a couple of photos for you and I will be back in the next couple of days to give you the low down on the tour itself...

Claire and Judith showing the dunes some respect...

These two look docile and loveable, but when they came running towards the hide, it was a little scary!

What beautiful creatures leopards are!

Michelle in the spotlight

This week has seen me return to South Africa - just in time to see Michelle embark on an exciting new chapter in her life as a photographer.

Earlier this year, Michelle relocated to St Lucia, a laidback little coastal town in KwaZulu-Natal. St Lucia is known as the gateway to the iSimangaliso Wetland Park, South Africa's first UNESCO World Heritage Site, which is home to eight interlinking ecosystems, a huge variety of bird species, an impressive estuary and age-old coastal dunes. St Lucia is also close to Hluhluwe-iMfolozi, a fantastic Big Five game reserve. In other words: St Lucia is the perfect base for a photographer!

Michelle has recently teamed up with another couple of local photography enthusiasts, Nick and Freya from www.tailormadesafaris.co.za and www.nuphotography.co.za. Following discussions with a local coffee shop owner (the lovely Mario from Illy's), they were given the green light to decorate an entire wall of the coffee shop premises with their artwork, a fantastic opportunity to exhibit some of their wonderful shots captured in and around St Lucia. They have had a number of photographs printed on high-quality canvas and the results are simply stunning.

When I arrived here on Tuesday - bleary-eyed and jetlagged - things were already in full swing...

 

 

Finally, the moment they'd been waiting for... drilling holes and climbing ladders!

 

Nick and Michelle deciding on what looks best

Nick doing the honours of hanging up the first canvas...

  

...while Michelle and Freya keep a close eye on things.

The end result... pretty impressive!

  

So after a long day, we had one exhausted but very proud Michelle! The canvasses look a million dollars and here's hoping they sell like hot cakes so that room can be made for more superb artwork. Illy's will be hosting an exhibition night in the next month - champagne and all - so watch this space for another update on our three talented photographers.

 

The last of the Namibian photos

Here goes, the final lot of the images taken in Namibia. These were taken on our last day in fact, which kicked off with a spot of leopard tracking!

 

 

Here are just some of the animals that crossed our paths that morning...

A family of Hartmann's mountain zebra

Kudu

Yet more graceful giraffe...

I am embarrassed to say I don't remember what these birds are called - ornithology not being one of my strong points!   

And what better way to finish off our trip with a bit of hyena tracking - ON FOOT! Rather disappointingly, this old dear barely registered our presence. 

 

The Namibian Wilderness - part four

Finally, some big cats! These lovely elderly cheetah live in Okonjima, home of the AfriCat Foundation, a wonderful place dedicated to rehabilitating cheetah and leopard.

     

The Namibian Wilderness - part three

Etosha National Park is Namibia's most well-known game reserve - a massive mineral pan almost ten times the size of Luxembourg! It is renowned for its excellent game viewing centred around numerous waterholes. 

Here's the waterhole at Okaukuejo, near one of the main entrances to Etosha. As we watched the sun go down, we were joined by a group of thirsty giraffe.

 

The Namibian Wilderness - part two

Palmwag, southern Damaraland. Home to desert-adapted wildlife and vast expanses of rolling hills and flat-topped mountains. This is also where the Himba, one of Namibia's last semi-nomadic tribes, continue their traditional way of life.

A few scenes that are typical of Palmwag...

  

    

The Namibian Wilderness - part one

Namibia, land of contrasts.

Here are some images taken in and around Sossusvlei. The scale of these world-famous dunes cannot be described in words - simply incredible.

 
    

South Africa 2010

Yes, the Big Cheeses are back in South Africa, soaking up the 2010 fever while working on several clickety click projects.

So, to kickstart the season, here are some photos taken during a recent game drive to beautiful Hluhluwe-iMfolozi...

And stay tuned for an introduction to Namibia!

 

Tea for miles...

This update is also long overdue... here - finally - are the last of the Malawi images.

After our two magical days at Liwonde, we enjoyed a two-day stopover at Satemwa Tea Estate. I felt as though we'd entered a colonial time warp! We stayed at Huntingdon House, the original 1920s Satemwa homestead, which has recently been beautifully renovated and is situated on Thyolo Mountain amidst seemingly endless tea plantations. 

We arrived just as the weather was closing in, an amazing sight.

 

In between being wined and dined at Huntingdon by our wonderful hosts and enjoying a peaceful interlude away from the chaos of Malawi's roads (this warrants a post in its own right!), we explored parts of the estate, a vast expanse of tea fields that just seem to go on forever. Beautiful patches of green, divided into neat segments, much like below: 

 

This is what tea leaves look like close up...

Some of the tea bushes date back to the first half of the 20th century, Satemwa being one of Malawi's oldest tea plantations.

 

We made a tea tasting appointment at the factory, which proved to be a surprisingly insightful experience. I for one had no idea of what's involved in the art of making tea! 

While down Thyolo way, we drove over to Mulanje to catch a glimpse of Mount Mulanje, an impressive massif with a plateau the size of a small European country (by which I don't mean the obvious). This is by all accounts a hiker's paradise. We didn't have time to skip up the mountain unfortunately - maybe next time.  

  

And that's it for Malawi! We spent our last night back in Lilongwe, dissecting and digesting all the information we'd gathered over the last week and deciding on an itinerary. It's due to be uploaded to our site any day now so watch this space.

Next on the clickety click agenda: Namibia!