The ostrich
We went down to Hartbeespoort today and did a walking safari in the De Wildt 4×4 Game Park. Supposedly, there are only 'harmless' animals inside, so a walking safari should be quite safe. In fact, it's probably riskier just to drive around in a 4×4 as it seemed that the boys take their toys inside just to see if they can actually navigate their cars through the holes and up the steep hills, taking in inclines which occasionally appeared to be over 45 degrees.
We indeed saw some harmless wildlife although I doubt the claim the managers of the park make that you see more wildlife here in 30 minutes than you see in Kruger in a whole week holds water. Still, we had a lot of fun with a rather daft ostrich which kept following us around and seemingly just wanted to hang out with us.
Walking around with Mark and Angele, they were actually slightly scared of the extremely tall animal, which resulted in one lovely scene. Mark was standing behind a bush to avoid having to watch the ostrich in the face and risking, I suppose, being pecked at. Slowly slowly, the ostrich then started to make its way around the bush to meet Mark, as if saying "Don't mind me… tumdedum… I'm harmless, really… dumdedumdum… don't be afraid" and Mark again avoiding the sweet animal.
Earlier, we had kroketten, Douwe Egberts coffee and Grolsch at a nearby restaurant dressed up like a windmill. Not us, the restaurant.
Quote
In today's Sunday Times, there was a commentary on South Africa's government's zeal to rename Boer place names. In itself, this is not totally unfair, although it would make more sense not to rename the Boer place names but start with the imperial British ones. Anyway, the white South Africans apparently don't seem to care too much and take it in their stride. The quote: "the local Dutchman is evolving in the same direction as his forefathers in Holland, where people are so meek, tolerant and open-minded that their brains are in danger of falling out."
Watch out for your brains.