OK, so it’s been a while in the life of me but…

... Mopane mapping finished, Magoebaskloof again, some diving, a bit more diving, fun times with friends and now in the Pilansberg J
To start at the most recent, sitting in the Pilansberg after an awesome weekend with my family. We saw the teeniest, tiniest elephant ever – literally a day or two old – it still had it’s umbilical cord and was in a small sub-herd. It explored our car quite closely and fitted under the side mirror. Actually, rather than walked next to our car, read lent on it - it was too unstable to walk on its own! Luckily, Mom (the elephant one, not mine!) was quite relaxed about the whole thing though. So Very Cute! We also some sable this morning, and a giraffe drinking which was quite cool! Other than that, we haven’t seen that much (unless you ask my Mom – we stopped 4 times for the same “rhino” aka a rock and slammed on breaks for running Wildebeest aka a car) but it’s great just being out of the city. And, very exciting, the kingfishers are back! YAY – that means summer is coming! We also had a Natal Francolin come and join us for the rugby yesterday (go BOKKE!) – literally. The door was open and he just walked in and tried to help himself to some of the snacks. Bit of a downer at the end – my sisters car broke down which meant a high speed drive to Hartebeespoort to get there before the AA tow truck did, but she’s safely home – think it’s time for a new car! As a friend, another Heather, who also came up this weekend said – when she wants the car to stop, it goes, and when she wants it to go, it stops (with reference to her “straight-after-service-please-check-the-breaks break-failure accident earlier this year).
Then, recently, I've got lots of diving done. I’ve just done my 2* and basic Nitrox so lots of dives. The 1st set was done at Miracle Waters. We did 3 dives – one “exploratory” dive to 27m and another to 30m to do skills, where we attempted to blow up condoms with various stages of narcosis. I couldn’t really be bothered and Meg next to me thought it was the funniest thing out! Laughter travels at 30m J We also did a night dive – extremely disorienting at 1st – imagine walking outside on a pitch-dark night blindfolded. Now add in the extra dimension of being able to go up or down, the neon lights of cylumes and the odd torch beam including your own and work stuff out! But it was pretty awesome! And as I wasn’t cold when I got out, I love my chicken vest and socks J Then, after only 3½ hours sleep (good pasta evening with friends and the subsequent chatting between Anne, Shona and myself to sort the world’s problems, mainly those to do with the male species), we headed to Bass for our next dive – an what an epic it was. After an almost rescue to go and fetch Paolo (too much working out = wetsuit doesn’t fit = can’t breathe when trying to swim 200m in FREEZING water), the 2 stars hit the water. Shona did so much yo-yo’ing (thanks to an auto-inflating BC) that navigation was impossible (Godfrey, Calley, you would be proud – I swam a rather large square at the same level using a compass! This is a challenge when visability is a couple of metres) but also managed to loose not only her cylinder (with a guffawing buddy, Anne), a fin and a mask, but also a weighbelt (so overweighted it was falling off – not a problem - we’ll just move it up and tighten it, except that now it’s sitting at the bottom of Bass Lake). So anyone who is diving there soon and comes across a blue weight belt with 9 weights on it (I said it she was over-weighted), please return it to Shona (or Dave, her now ex-bf!). And then Shona starts cramping. I said it was epic! But lots of coffee, more pasta and more Malva pudding later seemed to help!
Then back to the beginning - or the end of the last blog post - the end of Mopane Mapping and Magoebaskloof, again. Picking up from the last blog… more walking up near Phalaborwa. Practical tricks abounded - from attempting to walk stright over huge termitaria (had to keep a straight line), to running away from imaginary elephants when Godfrey was moving the vehcile to singing "yellow submarine" (I'm still asking why?!), I think we gave Godfrey, among others (sorry for the rocks Robert!), a hard time! Phalaborwa’s still not a happening place – I used to run EVERY road in the staff village, around the village and to the compound and back and it took 9 minutes! I had this theory that the 1st time the impala saw you, they would be skittish and move away, the 2nd time it would be a "what the....?" kind of look, the 3rd time (by now about 3 mins after the 1st time you saw them), they were going "didn't we just see you - like a minute ago", the 4th time it would be "we DID see you a minute ago", the 5th time would be "you are really mad or lost" and by the time I'd pass them for the 6th time, they would just ignore me... and this all on 1 loop! But at the end of the week, we had a great drive down to Skukuza – we saw the big 5, except leopard, on the road and a brilliant sighting of wild dog. Also moved the OTS vehicle, or rather turned it around. Hehehehe! When we got to Skukuza, there was a slight problem with our booking, in that we had none! Thank goodness for friends (thanks Laurence!)! I went out with the OTS REU people – some snakes (= herpers excited) and lots of small mammals (= me excited). Then off to rugby for the Super 14 final – except that trapping bats was strangely more appealing... Did watch the second half though – once it was clear that the bulls would win! It was back out with REU the next morning and while we were happy to work with a pride of lions about 200m away (some lady INSISTING that we get back into the vehicles even though we had a game guard with us!), the birding group, including Calley, Karen and Graeme) attempted to get eaten by a lioness (who had cubs!). A game of squash with Henri, a cup of coffee with Karen and we were back in Phalaborwa and then Balulue/Olifants. What a wonderful little camp… We had to awesome volunteers, Malcolm and Mike, come to help us and a great time was had by all. We started off walking in an area, where I’m absolutely positive there was the KNP giraffe convention going on. I have never seen so many giraffe in one place at the same time. Lunch for those couple of days was had in the Timbavati river – WOW! Also came across really fresh lion and rhino spoor but didn’t see them… there! But we did get to see something like 29 lion in 3 days. And the other group (Calley, Godfrey and Mike) tried to get eaten by another lion – they’d not seen a rather large male lion tracking a rather large herd of buffalo until they were about 10-15m away! Then it was back to Magoebaskloof again, this time staying with family friends and Henri and Leigh, friends from Skukuza came to join us. We had a wonderful day on Saturday wondering around the village and a beautiful sunset at the dam. The next day, Henri tried to kill me as we rode down the escarpment (dropped 800m in 15mins) and then realized we had to get back up… and hour later we didn’t want to see another hill! But we had a scrumptious breakfast with Linda and Stu before Henri and Leigh went back and Calley and I headed to the falls. It was Calley’s 21st birthday that week, and Nikki and Rob came for dinner. Apart from Nikki, nobody had seen magic candles… what non-South Africans miss out on! Calley then went back to Magoebaskloof after the last week of Mopane mapping to work at the stable where we had been riding before so when I went to pick her up, she had organized an lovely outride… even if the horse I was on decide that that was the day for being frisky and galloping.
And that working backwards, is the story of the life of me from the last couple of months…
…Except for one thing…
… hold onto your chairs…
… I submitted my PhD!
Yip, it’s in and hopefully by November, my title will change properly! I’m still in the “was it really good enough for a PhD” stage and keep getting up to do it but then…

OK, that was a really long blog, but pics are:
http://picasaweb.google.com/lancasterjenny/OutAndAbout1?authkey=Gv1sRgCP7Y0IWjqKu06QE#
Pasta/diving pics are on fb - look for the 1 x pasta, 1 x CRAZY dive & 100% coffee... on my profile!