Helicopters and Pigeons

Every now and then a blip hits the horizon to turn an otherwise rather pedestrian week into a highlight.
Such a day happened a couple of months ago ..... it involved helicopters and clay pigeons.

My network engineer and I were invited to fly by helicopter from Johannesburg to the Hippo Creek shooting centre approximately 110 KM near a town called Parys in the Free state to do some clay pigeon shooting then attend a new computer product launch, followed by some lunch before flying back.

Over the years I've had the privilege of flying in helicopters both military into combat and civilian and I can really say I never ever tire of the excitement and the experience

How To:
How to do clay pigeon shooting.... 

• Take a pigeon, dip it in liquid clay and leave to dry for approximately 1 hour
• Take pigeon outside with a 12 gauge shotgun
• get someone to throw the pigeon high in the air
• Shoot pigeon

OK now that I've got everyone in a state, a clay pigeon is actually a clay disc (see picture below) that is launched on your command and then you have to shoot it out of the sky.... sooo easy.... NOT!!!! ...... But incredible fun

So let me not bore you with endless details but rather put up some photo's.....

Sitting up front with the Pilot

Take off with Johannesburg in the distance

Sandton business district

Out over the free state

Hippo Creek on the right

The helicopter we flew in - Bell 407

Second of four helicopters coming into land

Clay Pigeon shooting

Clay Pigeon

Clay Pigeon launcher

Tailings dam near Johannesburg

Johannesburg with Hillbrow Tower (Telecommunications)

Brixton tower (Television & Radio)

Zoo Lake

Coming in to land

Past recent trips... Recently past trips.... Trips past and recent......

Past recent trips... Recently past trips.... Trips past and recent....Part 1

As I said I would do things a bit in reverse so going back to my last work trip the one prior to me being in the Congo....

I've been back to Malawi for work.... No pleasure just work, I wont detail what the work is; just the usual I.T. stuff, although I must say a weekend sitting by the pool,of a very passable hotel ( Mount Soche Hotel) in Blantyre while a bit boring was very relaxing.

Hotel

Hotel gardens

Chumba - Fish

Hotel Gardens

Menu - Fish and seafood are officially different

Gardens

Sorbet for pudding

 But as I say it was just work as usual, but the view from my office window does give leave for a bit of distraction.

View from Office window

Next time I go up I will endeavor to have a bit more to report on as I will take Pam with me, get a car and travel into the hinterland of Malawi i.e. up to the lake.

Then Pam decided we needed a bit of us time so prior to going to the Congo she took us to the Drakensberg for a bit of a break..........

Lubumbashi - Democratic Republic of Congo

Lubumbashi - Democratic Republic of Congo

Well here we go again, actually I didn't stop going .... been working in Malawi holidaying in the Drakensberg now working in the Congo, and let me apologise for the months of quiet... No I don't have an excuse...... and as usual no jewellery work on the horizon to speak of just lots of travel so....... 

As I said here we go again, I will relate over a couple of future blog entries - the last month of travels in reverse its easier that way.

I am currently in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), and how ironic it is that as I write I am sitting on the pool deck of the hotel (Le Grand Karavia Hotel) having a quiet beer as the sun goes down and my wife is updating me on the war going on in the north east with refugees pouring out into Uganda, all is amazingly quiet and peaceful here.
It is a bit surreal for me I must say, I've fought in a war so I know what it's like, now here I am sitting on a pool deck, sun going down, beer going down and a couple of hundred kilometers north a war is being fought...... Interesting.......

Interesting aside, not only are the journalists Tweeting about it as it progresses, but the M23 Rebels who are busy fighting are also tweeting about it.....interesting/odd/surreal....

Rebel Army Tweet

Beer on the pool deck

But anyhew back to my raison d'être I am here to do a site survey prior to confirm viability for installation of a new network and data storage system for our (my company) office located in the DRC.

The flight was "interesting" at best.... PS I like to call any situation going from yawn to the horrific "interesting"
The flight itself was just one long yawn 1164km of yawn in a plane powered by an elastic band (propeller powered).

I progressed through a good number of pages of Les Miserables interspersed with a few dropping off to sleep moments - flying does that to me - put me in a plane and I go to sleep.

Wheels down... coming into land, outskirts of Lubumbashi below

But the landing that was "interesting".......

Then into the hotel beside an idyllic lake........

Hotel

Lake in front of the hotel

Pool Area

Typical street scene on the way into town

 After a sizable bit of work we headed out for lunch at a nearby restaurant, where I had a local fish for lunch called Tilapia, absolutely delicious.

Restaurant for lunch

Beach Volleyball and soccer area next to the restaurant, lake in the back ground

Tilapia Lunch

So here we are .......

Location:Lubumbashi Democratic Republic of Congo

Hoot-cootians and other creatures

Hoot-cootians........ All over the bush in their droves

Back in the Pilanesburg for the weekend and to celebrate my birthday, well not quite this weekend it's actually next week but this weekend is our timeshare weekend so it's close enough to celebrate my birthday.

Pam has given me a morning of interaction with and riding on elephants at the Letsatsing game park next to Sun City which is next to the Pilanesburg for my birthday, what an absolutely awesome present and way to spend a morning.





The morning starts with a talk by the guides about the elephants at the lodge, the elephants are then walked down to the lodge where we get to meet and greet them.

Letsatsing Reception Lodge

And the elephants came down two by two

Pam greeting Michael

"Ants are such tiny things ... arent they?"

No more for me!!!

Then its all "on-board" with our mahout and off on a gentle amble into the bush we went.....









It is absolutely incredible how quiet a creature of that size is even with 3 humans on its back when it walks through the bush.
It does get a bit noisy when said elephant gets a bit peckish and stops to uproot a small tree, tear it in half and very noisily chomp it down while continuing to walk along....... Still no foot fall noises.
Interesting piece of useless information - an adult elephants foot is 50 cm in diameter, and it eats for up to 18 hours a day, consuming 250-300 kilograms of food a day.... Now that is one hell of a lot of salad bits.....

250kg's of salad bits has a rather noisy side effect on said elephant, and sitting in the rear seat I was treated to rumblings in the stomach followed waves of flatulance - and an aroma of freshly processed grass and leaves.

After the safari, it was back to the lodge where we got to hand feed them, pour two handfulls of pellets into the end of the trunk which they then use to pour into their mouth, then dash back to the bucket of food get two more handfuls feed again..... repeat until bucket is empty.......and then it was time to say goodbye.

Gives an idea of the height on the back of the elephant

Feeding Time

Then it was off to Sun City for lunch at Santorini's - a great little Greek restaurant followed by a little lie down next to the pool to ease off the lunch.




We then peddled off back into the Pilanesburg for a bit of game viewing prior to closing time of the park at 18:30.

The bush as usual - we are never disappointed- is teeming with hoot-cootians and other game, now when I say teeming I don't mean that they are right up close, this is not a zoo, you have to look carefully and some of the time you have to use binoculars to confirm if what you have just seen is a hoot-cootian or something else.

So it was a drive back to our resort with a steady viewing of elephant, rhino (white rhino) giraffe, impala, steenbok a crocodile, springbok, kudu and hoot-cootians.

Crocodile

Hippo sunning themselves

Pied Kingfisher

Steenbok

Sprinbok

Evening at a dam

Night comes down at our chalet

Giraffe

Spot the TWO Giraffe lying in the grass

Crocodile cruising for lunch

So what is a Hoot-cootian..... well it is a very oft spotted creature of the bush up there with the Yeti and the Haggis, we see dozens of them in the form of Lion-rocks, Elephant-trees, Cheetah-anthills.

It usually starts off with excited shouts .... there's a lion.... an elephant..... a cheetah followed by with eyes bulging into binocular eye pieces..... "Oh no its a tree, bush, anthill... or maybe its a hoot-cootian".

Location:Pilanesberg