Hiking Marloth

We were up at 6am to be greeted by Zebra in the garden. Our food pellets are now running low even though we brought 40kg and then an extra 10kg when we arrived back in Marloth. The herd animals can really get through it.
For breakfast Ellie attempted our first Jaffels with our new Jaffel Iron we brought from the outdoor warehouse. A jaffel is like a really deep filled toastie so it’s an excellent way of using up leftover food for lunches or breakfasts, so today we had scrambled egg and cheese and tomato Jaffels and they were really tasty. The jaffel iron will definitely be travelling with us in the future along with the pie iron.
At 9am we decided to drive to one of the bird hides before it got too hot and go for a hike. It was already getting warm and unbelievably muggy.
We spotted an armoured plated skink as soon as we stepped onto the trail and then herds and herds of Impala. The females were the Kruger side of the fence and most of the males were our side staring at them. We could see where the females had dug their way under the fence to get through creating big holes where other animals, including predators could now get in to Marloth. The male’s couldn’t follow them under because of their horns.
After 3km and 45 minutes we turned around, it was getting really hot now and we’d done a litre of water between us already. Luckily we had another small bottle in the camper.
When we got back to “little simba” it felt like the surface of the sun inside and I started the engine and whacked the air con right up while we drank the remainder of our drinks. We were dripping in places we didn’t even know we had.
It’s now the Easter holidays in South Africa and Marloth Park is filling up with holiday makers, coming back to their holiday homes or renting places. All of the roads have turned into game drive tracks with kids hanging out of sunroofs and standing in the back of pickup trucks looking for animals. It’s now a very different very busy place than the one we arrived at.
We arrived back at the house at midday and 2 days ago the house at the end of our garden which is actually being built had a family turn up. It was already quite a noisy building site but the family that has arrived has absolutely no concept of volume and even though they are 100 meters away from us we can hear every word they are saying. The kids are up at 7am screaming and shouting all day and the parents aren’t much better.
We can’t understand why you would want to come to a place that’s quiet and full of animals and then scare everything away.
At 2pm we’d had enough of listening to the neighbours and decided to head to the spar and get some shopping for dinner. On the way out we noticed their neighbours packing lunch stuff into their car and heading out to find somewhere quiet aswell.
The Spar was a different experience now all the tourists are here and we now know it’s far too small to cope with the influx of tourists. It was really busy and chaotic and we couldn’t wait to get out.
South African supermarkets don’t have liquor licenses, for alcohol of any kind you have to go to the liquor store which is usually next door, and it’s the same with the Spar and the other convenience store located here. I wanted some beers and popped in, grabbed a six pack and joined the queue of South Africans buying copious amounts of alcohol. We know the South Africans like a drink but the amounts they were buying were crazy. There was an articulated lorry in the car park that was 40ft long and loaded front to bag with floor to ceiling with alcohol. It was all being delivered here. When I just had my lonely six pack the guy at the till kept asking if that’s all I had. I had to say yes, I’m not South African.
Back at the house the kids at the back were now in the bush veld at the bottom of the garden. They just seem to shout at each other even when they standing next to each other. More families have moved in to other property nearby and even though they aren’t close and we can’t see them, we can hear them all. The place now sounds like a playground.
I put the TV on and found a music channel to drown out the noise of everyone else. All the animals seemed to have been scared off so we decided to head indoors away from the noise and watch something on TV until dinner time.
Just as we sat down I noticed movement out the corner of my eye going past the front door. The mongoose had returned.
Ellie ran for the eggs and I opened the back door.
There they were sitting on the back steps and Ellie rolled the eggs for them. Some we hard boiled some were still raw.
They loved the eggs and it was so funny watching them stand on their back legs and crack the eggs open on the floor to get into them. We ended up giving them 20 eggs and they were all gone within 10 minutes. Once the eggs had gone they started snuffing around at the concrete path at the back of the house and digging at the side of it. Then one of them pulled out a big scorpion and ate it. We didn’t even know it was there. That’s why it’s good to have mongoose at the house.
Once they had eaten they all cuddled up under a tree a went to sleep. They are just like ferrets.
At 5pm after watching some TV we headed back outside and there were Kudu waiting for us with babies. I managed to hand feed them the last of our food and felt very guilty when we ran out. They’re very good at the puppy dog eyes.
We had dinner whilst the warthogs stood all around us making us feel guilty and then as it got dark I set the camera up ready for a bit of bushbaby bothering. Then Ellie put the food out and we headed back indoors for the night to watch TV while we waited for the bushbabies.
They turned up late tonight at 9pm and I was ready to give up when 2 turned up and I managed to video them. Then with load shedding in place for the next 2.5 hours we headed to bed to cook overnight.Read more