Tinga Lodge - Lion Sands Game Reserve, Kruger National Park

After River Lodge, we headed off to Tinga Lodge for our last night of magic in the bush. I honestly have nothing bad to say about any of the MORE properties. Each one of them are unique and special and every single time we go your experiences are different.

Tinga Lodge was great, with only 9 (Massive) rooms it feels more intimate and private.

The rooms are amazing and the view of the Sabie River from your terrace which has a plunge pool by the way is breathtaking. We even had some Ellies come visit us in front of the room, crossing the river, playing in the water! What a welcome committee!

What better way to take in the new scenery while sipping on a nice cold beverage, as the temperatures were boiling.

We spent our days taking in the beauty, eating (you test your body limits with eating when visiting MORE properties) some of the best tasting food and going on game drives. We had some rain on our last morning game drive, but spotted a mother leopard with 2 grown cubs. Very shy and you really had to concentrate not to miss them. But to spot that many different leopards in one trip is rare!

The evening after dinner we went back to our rooms, with a sad good bye on our bed we realised that this was the end of our trip. They even ran a nice warm bath for me with candles and rose petals. Heaven!!! I am a sucker for a good bath!

So with heavy hearts we were off, but we cannot wait for our next trip back! We are already planning a nice Kruger trip for August! 

Thank you to the Tinga team for making our stay extra special and for letting us leave with tears in our eyes. Happy tears of course! :)

Glen Afric Country Lodge

Hello Journeyers,
As all of you know by now Cedric and I love exploring and going away over weekends. We have been doing this less and less lately as our busy lives have taken over our social lives. It sucks to be honest and I miss our weekends away and I miss my blogging. I miss sharing the places we visit with all of you. A few weeks back we were on our way to family for the weekend and decided to turn it into a little adventure so we had a short pit stop.

We came across Glen Afric CL on SafariNow. I was super excited as they do elephant walks and interactions. I love elephants and I was sold. Glen Afric is only 40min from Johannesburg, so perfect for a nice weekend getaway. I was rather impressed with what they have to offer, from a variety of accommodation options to picnics and lion interactions. We were welcomed by friendly staff with warm welcome smiles and taken to our room.

It was like walking into a different century and I loved it. The paintings on the walls really intrigued me. Unfortunately I'm not a art guru and all I can say is I liked it. We headed to the deck to relax and de-stress from the traffic with a good glass of wine followed by a very tasty dinner.

I slept like a baby and loved waking up to the calls of the zebra's and birds. We packed our bags with heavy hearts and headed to breakfast which is included in the rate. The views are something else and we spotted the ellies, zebras and a few other antelope.

We really did enjoy our stay and I just want to thank the wonderful staff of Glen Afric for making our stay extra special. You will see us soon but this time in your tents, then stable blocks oh yes and then your cottages.

You can find them HERE:

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Have you ever been to Glen Afric?

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Disclaimer: All expenses were paid for by us for our stay at Glen Afric Country Lodge, but we were upgraded to the Luxury room. As always all comments and opinions are my own. All of the content and images posted are my own unless otherwise specified / linked to the original source. Please feel free to share photographs and material from this site but please link back to the original image or post. 

My Top 10 Moments of 2013!

Hello Journeyers!
WOW have I missed you! To be honest with you, I have been a tad off my blogging game lately. For some reason I am completely demotivated. So if you have ANY tips on how to get me motivated again please leave 'em down below! :)
I was reading Jenna's Top Moments over at A Home Away From Home and she persuaded me to do my own Top Moments Post.

I will be sharing my Top 10 Moments of 2013 below in no alphabetical order!

1) 3 Year Anniversary - Yes, most of you must be thinking "why that as a highlight". Well it's easy. I love Cedric so much and for me to reach 3 Years in a relationship is quite a big deal. hehe. Because he has officially been my longest relationship. I will take that as a sign and keep him around for a while longer...or forever!

2) #JHBbloggermeetup - I came up with this bright idea to organise a Johannesburg Blogger Meet up. After lots of planning and hard work trying to get everything together while having a 8-5 work we did it! I loved organising it, and was extremely blessed to have so many amazing sponsors jump on board who spoiled each blogger and contributed to the very generous goody bags. I met so many lovely people this day and I know that some of them will be in my life forever. I love how blogging and social media have introduced me to so many wonderful people. We all came together at Vovo Telo Parkhurst where we spent most of the day getting to know each other better and just laughing the day away. These ladies are truly special!

3) New Camera - Yes another strange highlight, but I have been subtly throwing hints in Cedric's direction for us to get a decent camera. You know, to be taken serious as a blogger you need a fancy schmancy camera....haha. Well that may or may not have been one of my hints. And then after driving through the Rhino and Lion Park one Saturday and after Cedric took a few photos with our "mik en druk" he finally caved and off we went to Dion Wired to buy this little baby.....

4) Playing with Lion Cubs - I love animals, and I love them even more when they are still small! What's not to love about anything baby size? So you can all imagine my excitement when Cedric suggested we go play with the Lion Cubs at the Rhino and Lion Park. (this was actually the same day he decided we need a new camera, so thank you baby lions and boo boo of course) It costs only R30 for 5min / 10min (I honestly cannot remember now) and you get to choose between either cubs who are 2-3 months old or a bit older. This day we went to play with the bigger boys, they were 7 months and superrrrr cute! We actually enjoyed it so much that we took Landan back the next day so that he can experience it.

5) Sunsets next to the Crocodile River - As all of you know, in 2012 we started doing mid year holiday breaks. It's much needed, because as much as I love Johannesburg, the rush and insanity of this city can hit you harder than you think. This is the perfect way than to cut your year in half and enjoy a little break away from the crazy traffic and rushed lifestyle. We decided to go to the bush this time around and opted for a nice break in Marloth Park, Mpumalanga. We would spend most of our evenings watching the sunset overlooking the Crocodile river while sipping on a sundowner. If it wasn't for me not being alive I would have guessed that that was pretty close to how heaven felt. We truly have a mesmerizing beauty to our country and I am very happy to call this place my home.

6) Close encounters with some Ellies - On the same mid year break we ended our amazing holiday in Thornybush Game Reserve. For the people who are first timers to my blog, I have a slight obsession with Elephants. Only a small one. And on our one game drive I begged the ranger to please just find the elephants for us. And with a little tip from the others and 2 hours of driving in circles he decided to not wait for the Elephants to come to us but for us to go to them. I started getting a bit nervous when we started driving more off road and cutting down branches just to find out way. And then all of a sudden, we were in the middle of herd of say 30 elephants! Mindbogglingly amazing I tell you. These creatures are such beautiful majestic giants. The one walked past us close enough for me to just reach out without any effort and touch it. It took all of me not to do it. To show how close we were, the picture below was taken without me even touching the zoom button.

7) We bought Mo-Landy - Everyone must have noticed by now that Cedric and I have a big slight obsession with the bush and everything related to it. So it's only common sense for us to invest in a car that would take us to these places with ease. And that is exactly what we did. We bought the best/coolest/hippest you catch my drift car in the world. And it's orange! And it is very obvious that Cedric's love for Mo-Landy has grown much bigger than his love for me. No jokes. I think he loves this car more than me. We named it Mo-Landy. Why? Well when you look at it from the front, it almost seems like the car has a mustache (Mo). And it's a Landrover (Landy). And Mo also means "mine" in Kreole. So when I told Cedric this he loved the name. Mo-Landy. May we have safe travels all over Africa with you!

8) Elephant Sanctuary - Haha wow so I have 2 highlights that involve Ellies! This one was something else. I loved it! For my birthday Cedric took me to get real up close and personal with these magnificent animals. Early morning we were off to Harties to go "play" with Elephants. I was in such a daze the whole morning. It was all so perfect and I just fell in love with these animals all over again. Intelligent (I can bet they they are more intelligent than some of the people in this country), gentle (well as gentle as a wild animal can be), beautiful, interesting and the list goes on. I have such respect for them and I can just imagine how perfect my life will be if I can one day work with them.

9) Inspired by Oprah - This is probably one of the days that I won't easily forget. I received an email the Thursday from a PR agency telling me that they would like to give me a ticket to go watch the one and only Oprah Winfrey Inspire the c#*p out of people that Monday. I literally almost fell off my chair! Phoned my boss to ask for the day off and off Siyaam and I went the Monday to go get our lives changed. And man was I inspired. I choked back a few tears when she walked in from being overwhelmed and then choked back a few more while she spoke.

10) Island ending - We ended our year off by going to Cedric's family in Mauritius for Christmas and New Year. And I entered the New Year with my best friend and her husband. This holiday she experienced my horrible side (so so so sorry). And even though I had my moods we still had a wonderful holiday. Even with ups and downs comes good times. Memories that will last forever. What a way to end 2013 and welcome 2014!

I just want to say thank you so much to all the people that made 2013 a big success. We had our ups and downs but we definitely came out stronger and better. Boo boo, without you 2013 would have been a tough one, so thank you for sticking it out and still being there! My family and friends, I know I'm not always the easiest person to get along with but thank you for not giving up on me! I love you guys and will treasure each and every one of you forever!

Here's to 2014! We can only go up from here!

Elephant Sanctuary Harties

Hello Journeyers,
Well the long weekend is officially over, for those of you who did take the extra long option, I hope you had a great weekend! I was not that fortunate and had to work Monday. But I did have an amazing Heritage Day!
Cedric spoiled me yesterday as an early birthday gift. And it was definitely the 3rd best day of my life! What is the first 2 you may ask? Well the 1st is the day that Cedric asked me to be his girlfriend. *swoon* and the 2nd happened recently, at our July Holiday where the Elephant literally moved past us only a few cm's.

My birthday gift was a trip to the Elephant Sanctuary in Hartbeespoortdam. As all of you know I love Elephants! So this was high on my To Do List. :) And it finally happened!
We were booked for the 10am Interaction, but I think excitement levels were a bit high as we arrived an hour early. But I was too happy to just be there so we sat and admired the other groups do their thing.
10am came and we were all gathered for 2 hours of fun. We had a educational session with our guide Sam. These animals are truly amazing! The only thing I did not like though is that the groups are very big. Our group had 15 - 20 people. Then we were entertained by Temba and Pumba.

This Sanctuary has 5 Elephants, I only saw 4. They are busy going through their adolescent stage (teenager years) and therefore there was no Elephant Back rides.
We could touch them, from their trunks to their tails. We walked hand in trunk with them and I even got a big smooch from Temba. I was impressed with how their skins felt. Hard to the touch with thick hairs on them. The only soft part on their bodies are the sole of their feet and the back of their ears.

The scary part is that these Elephants were only between 10 - 13 Years old and are not fully grown yet. It is extremely intimidating if you stand next to one of these remarkable creatures. You never know when it will turn on you and turn you into scrambled eggs. But still what an experience! For such a big animal they are so gentle. 

South Africans are extremely blessed to live in a country with so many beautiful things to enjoy, from our views to the animals to the cultures and the people! 

So yes I can say this Heritage Day was one of my favorites! 

Thank you baby for one of the best birthday gifts ever! You are truly a blessing to me and I can just thank the Lord for bringing you into my life! I love you!

P.S. - After seeing these photos of me it's time to get into the healthy eating and exercise routine NOW! Goodbye flab hello fab! hehe

How did you spend your Heritage Day?

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Disclaimer: All of the content and images posted are my own unless otherwise specified / linked to the original source. Please feel free to share photographs and material from this site but please link back to the original image or post. As always all comments and opinions are my own.