clickety click - the blog

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.

 

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!

 

Beautiful Drakensberg

We have just returned from a fabulous trip to Cathedral Peak, in the heart of the Drakensberg. This time we were accompanied by Xolani, aka the Zulu Tourist, who had the time of his life exploring this part of his own country for the first time.

We once again stayed at Didima Camp and checked out another couple of walks and photo opportunities. Despite rumours to the contrary, the weather was at its very best, beautifully sunny and very hot. No need for a woolly hat at night!

This is the view that greeted us for breakfast...

Didima Camp from the road

Our Zulu Tourist in full regalia!

Typical view of the valley on the way to Doreen Falls

Omnipresent mountain ridges...

Michelle relaxing at Doreen Falls

Xolani going nuts...

...before climbing to the top of the waterfall

Perfect end to a good day - the sun about to set over Cathedral Peak.

The last of the game images

 

White rhino

Wild dog and hyena

We were lucky enough to spot a pack of wild dog right after a kill. Counted at least a dozen, including pups. We watched them for almost an hour as they crunched on bone and defended their kill from a couple of hungry hyena. Fascinating!

The mighty elephant

Hello folks! 

The latest clickety click adventure: a 12-hour game drive through Hluhluwe-iMfolozi Game Reserve. Thanks to Nick from www.tailormadesafaris.co.za, we had the most amazing time, spotting a huge variety of wildlife. I did my best to restrain myself but still managed to shoot over 350 images, so am going to upload one post per animal! Might have to check myself into self-imposed photography quarantine for a while in order to catch up with all the editing!

So to start with, here's the mighty elephant. We sighted three in total - the first soon after we entered the game park at 5am. They are beautiful creatures, so quiet and sad looking. I will let the images speak for themselves...

Crocs, etc.

Hi folks!

Running out of battery power, so no long explanatory notes, I am afraid. Most of the images don't need much of a description in any case...

Hip Hip Hippopotamus

We are back in St Lucia, South Africa! And what better way to celebrate our return than to embark on a hippo encounter. These huge mammals are fiercely impressive and, as everyone rejoices in telling us, account for 60% of all human deaths caused by animals in Africa. On land, they can run at a speed of 40 to 50 km an hour, while underwater, they move at 15 km an hour. In other words: mere mortals like us don’t stand a chance!

Here are some images…

 

Typically, the boats going up and down the estuary look like this:

 

Some black and white conversions...

 

On today’s agenda: crocodiles! It's good to be back.

Day Seven - On the Move Again

Our last day in St Lucia before heading for the big smoke of Durban! We wandered down to the estuary this morning to catch a glimpse of the hippo and crocodiles. St Lucia is home to Africa’s largest tidal estuary, which is characterised by a variety of ecosystems and, as a result, a huge diversity of wildlife. We saw – and in particular heard! – several hippo in the distance and were also able to spot the odd croc looming nearby. Xolani and Sifiso kept us entertained with horror stories of tourists being eaten alive so I was quite happy to keep my distance, I must confess (hence no photos!).

 

There were quite a few people out and about, in particular fishermen.

We then walked down to the beach – the weather was stunning and the sea looked very inviting!

 

Unfortunately, however, Durban was beckoning. We are now parked up in a typical soulless seventies’ hotel overlooking a rather derelict waterfront and it is blowing a gale outside. A stark contrast to the sunny and laidback feel of St Lucia! We have a couple of meetings lined up over the next two days with Emil, our South African photographer, before we take off once again and head on further south to New Zealand.

So there’s a chance this blog may undergo a hiatus of a few days – but I will report back from Christchurch once Michelle and I have settled in. We have a lot of material and ideas to wade through over the next few weeks so are expecting to be very busy.

 

That’s all for now…