So this whole game reserve thing was a new thing for me.. the whole idea of game "that's good game" was something I also had to learn. Oh no you don't call animals here animals you call them game. Me and Melody now call everything game, cows on the side of the road "Good game there" a bird in a tree "Did you see that game?" watching the Parliamentary sessions "Great game!!"
Game is supposed to be reserved for wild animals but who said we can't bend the rules.
So game time. Here is the post that I originally wrote for my trip to Pilansburg.
Opportunity
If you allow life to flow on you will realise that nothing is circumstancial. We are always offered opporunities and it is only a matter of us being flexible enough to take advantage of every situation. Pablo, a dedicated Socceroos supporter from Sydney, invited me to go to Pilansburg with him, which is a nature reserve, so off we go on a 2 hourdrive to Pilansburg. On the way we see a coach being escorted by police.. it has to be a football team. We decide to follow it, when we lose the coach we pull into a service station so Pablo can buy a drink. I decide to use this opportunity to get money out of the atm so Pablo waits for me to get my money before going in the servo to get drinks.. as he stands at the counter a man approaches him, that man has extra tickets to the England friendly that afternoon against local Rustenburg team The Platinum Stars. NEW PLAN!! we are going to the game.
Now think, if we hadn't detoured to follow the bus, if we hadn't pulled into the service station, if I hadn't got money out first would we have met the man who gave us the tickets?
The game starts at 4pm, we head off to see England.
The atmosphere at the stadium is amazing. The locals have come out in force to support their team and they are really cheering. They have this dance and chant which starts in groups around the stadium, It is really amazing to watch. The Platinum Stars play a brilliant game although they go down 3-0. They were definately equal to England in many aspects.
After the game it's back to the original plan to get to Pilansburg. We initially had intended to do an eaerly morning tour the next day but since the rego booth is closed we leave it for the next day and decide to do a day drive on our own.
Opportunity again... We go into the park the next day at about 11am, we see so many animals.
After about 4 hours of driving we decide to pick a route to head home, as we take that route we see a few cars parked further down, usually this means there's something good to see so we pull up to them and ask what they are waiting for, the guide brushes us off and tells us to continue further down to see some elephants on the road.. Now we've seen so many elephants and the way is opposite to the route we wanted to take but we go with the flow and take it any way.
... RHINOS!!!! our first Rhinos of the day and they are right next to the road. Both me and Pablo are so glad we took the other path because we got to see these 2 amazing creatures. We continue on the road and see a safari car full of guys with blue shirts approaching. I think its park staff or something. We stop the car and tell them that there are 2 Rhinos just further down, they say thanks and we drive away from each other. Then Pablo stops the car, I look at him, he looks at me, the moment of realisation... THAT WAS A CAR FULL OF ENGLISH PLAYERS!!!
Are we groupies? What should we do?
My response "Pablo turn around, turn around!!!"
We turn around and pull up next to their car.. "Oh hai.. we just realised who you guys were, we watched you play yesterday, good luck in the tournament..."
AAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH
Next plan is to try and get photos.. their car goes ahead of us and I get some back of the head shots until
...
2 more cars full of England players turn up, we talk to another group. Pablo says good luck, I say unless you come across Asutralia then bad luck.. they laugh.
Did you read that??? They laughed at something I said.
All our cars were sitting bumper to bumper as we had stopped to watch some elephants.. I was surprised that all the boys were using their phones to take pictures instead of having actual cameras.
Pablo and I tried to figure out if there was a sign in us meeting England twice and we decided that it mean Aus will play England in the round of 16 which could happen if England tops their group and Aus comes 2nd...
THE NEXT DAY
We decide to do an early morning drive so we were out by 6.30am. There's an area on the map called Hippo loop but we've tried it twice and not seen anything, we decide to try some other areas. It's amazing the way things work out, Pablo suggests a route I would either accept it or find an alternate and vice versa. We end up at Makorwane Dam looking at something like 7 live hippos and 1 dead one.. That made the morning complete for me. Photos tell all.
No comments:
Post a Comment