DADFAP@Large "Illegitimus non carborundum"

Birds around my farm

2011-10-22T14:44:00.000+10:30

I'm lucky enough to live in the hills behind Strathalbyn with views out to the Lower Lakes and Coorong with the Younghusband Peninsula in the distance. It's a favourite destination for early morning hot air balloon rides.

It's awesome up here sometimes with Wedge Tailed Eagles and the smaller birds of prey in the skies around almost every day.

More interesting to me are the smaller birds, the wrens, bee eaters and honey eaters that are perpetual motion "machines" living life at 100Kmh every minute of every day.

Photographing them is both fun and challenging, they're restless not giving you the opportunity to compose a shot, so anticipation is the order of the day.

This shot is one of my favourites. It's not technically brilliant nor is it of any rare or exotic species. It's a shot of a Gray Fantail (Rhipidura albiscapa) and if you look slightly to the right of the bird, there's a small light coloured spot.

No, it's not dust. I was watching this bird for a few minutes as it darted around under some shrubs coming in to land on the top of a stake. It took me some time to get this shot, as I said, it's not technically great but that small, light spec is it's next meal.

The shot was taken late July, under a very gloomy sky while I was dodging rain showers. The lens is a Canon 100 - 400 telephoto lens, F5.6 with the ISO set at 400.

We've found some stunning places for bird photography in the Coorong, just south of Menindie on Lake Albert so there's be some posts of pelicans (my wife's favourite birds) and other marine birds over the next few weeks.

DADFAP

Chemical Treatment Of Rhino Horn May Help Save The Day

2011-09-13T18:38:00.000+09:30

Treatment of Rhino horn with a chemical cocktail in South Africa has shown two great benefits in the war against poaching.

Initially designed to kill parasites this chemical survives grinding of the horn into powder.

It induces nausea and vomiting in those who ingest it as part of traditional medicine and fluoresces pink under airport x-ray scanners meaning that even in the powdered form it is readily identifiable to customs and quarantine inspectors.

Traditional medicine and the use for dagger handles represent the greatest demand for poached Rhino horn.

Proving that the illegal trade in Rhino horn is truly global, mounted Rhino heads have been stolen from museums across Europe and in the UK. The EU & the UK have made the sale of antique Rhino horns and mounted Rhino heads illegal.

In Australia there have been reports of vastly inflated prices for mounted Rhino heads. Early in 2011, Theodore Bruce Auctions announced that a “massive” antique rhino horn trophy with an estimated value of $30,000 to $40,000 fetched a record $112,000 after a bidding war.

There are serious health consequences for the eventual end user of these antique Rhino horns. In 2010 CITES advised that arsenic was used extensively in the preparation of Rhino horns.

You can learn more about Rhino and conservation efforts to preserve all of the globe's wild Rhino population at www.rhinoconservation.org

The World’s First Web Page

2011-08-07T17:26:00.000+09:30

This may not be strictly "on topic" but if not for this man, we wouldn't be here now would we?

Twentyyears ago this month, the world’s first web page was published by a physicistat the CERN Laboratory in the Swiss Alps.

From Tim's Facebook page

TimBerners-Lee, then 36, published the page to demonstrate the potential of theWWW project. The average computer user couldn’t access the page; the only peoplewith web browsing software were at the CERN facility.

Onlythe development of the Web Browser Mosaic and those that followed gave the WWW momentum.

Limitedinformation on the original page is available today as no screenshots were taken of thispage. A great day in the history of theInternet goes largely unrecorded.

Berners-Leealso founded the World Wide Web Consortium (referred to as the W3C.) to createthe standards that govern web pages so that pages can be viewed by allbrowsers.

Berners-Lee,now 56, is still director of the World Wide Web Consortium.

Cheers

DADFAP

Poachers face Court

2011-03-23T20:32:00.001+10:30

In October last year I wrote a post on some of the scum of the earth involved in poaching Rhino in South Africa. These scumbags will face court on April 11th in Musina, South Africa.

Remember, these are not subsistence farmers or people doing it tough living off of the land, they are affluent, professional people who thought first of their wallets and never gave a thought to the carnage they were visiting on the rhino population in South Africa.

Popular sentiment in South Africa is against these types of people who, if the courts have any common sense, will incarcerate them for as long as is permissible under the law. Their properties should be confiscated and their faces should become the "icons" for the anti-poaching movement in South Africa.

Rhino Conservation.ORG has organised a peaceful demonstration outside the court to mark the day of the "Groenwald Gang's" day in court. I encourage you to visit their site and take a look at the work and reporting they do. In the first 74 days of 2011 71 rhino had been poached in South Africa, with a number of poachers also shot by Game Rangers. 46 rhino had been slaughtered in the Kruger Park alone, accounting for over 60% of the total kill in what's South Africa's premier tourist destination.

THE BLOODY STATISTICS

(From www.rhinoconservation.org ..... thanks)

The South African government is struggling to deal with many social, economic and security issues but none has the potential to adversely impact the tourist trade and therefore the livelihood of so many people in the country.

CHEERS

DADFAP

HAPPY NEW YEAR

2011-01-02T15:44:00.000+10:30

Just a quickie today. All the best for 2011, major changes afoot so stay tuned.

Here's a couple of unpublished shots from our July / August 2010, wish we were there!

To our friends in Nambiba .......................... lucky sods! I hope that it rains on you!

Cheers

DADFAP

An afternoon at the Okaukuejo water hole

2010-10-13T23:42:00.002+10:30

We spent a great couple of hours at the Okaukuejo water hole one afternoon, elephants everywhere. The water hole is placed on the edge of the NWR camp and gets plenty of visitors, human and animal during the day. We had a particularly enjoyable afternoon there before we returned to the Eagle Tented Lodge for the evening.

It started with a single elephant and hundreds of impala and smaller animals at the waterhole just taking it easy and enjoying a relaxing drink or bath at the waterhole. The old bull who was there was pretty relaxed as you can see by the photo on the left, he has his trunk casually draped over his tusk surveying the land around him. Then along comes a young interloper, the good news is that all he was interested in was a quick bath and drink, not intent on causing any trouble. The big fella saw him coming and spent some time sniffing the air and went out to meet him, the smaller guy did the right thing and stepped aside, no sense in having a dust up when all you want is a drink and a cooling bath.

Their peace didn't last long as about 15 minutes later a whole herd of elephants, from calves to large matriarchs came down and stirred things up a little. The two males showed some interest as males normally do but the herd coming in was intent only on getting to the water and enjoying themselves. The babies in particular had a ball as the following shots show.

The dust that you can see isn't crap photography, that's the dust that they were making and also some dust kicked up by the departing animals. They saw this herd of elephants heading in and decided that they would make some room for the new guys.

Just as well too as they really did take over the place, water baths, playing submarines and plenty of dust baths, all the while looking after the calves they had in the herd.

One of the younger bulls played submarine while the others around him were hosing themselves and others in the waterhole. He ended up laying right down and just snorkelling away having a great time.

The highlight though was the antics of the young calves that formed part of the herd, they were just having a blast. The little fella on the left had spent some time getting dusted off and was having some problems getting back to his feet.

Mum sorted things out and gave them both a good dust bath as you can see in the shot to the right.

You can see that after a quick cooling, dip a dust bath was high on the agenda for many of the elephants.

The youngsters continued to have fun, charging out of the water chasing down the smaller animals.

Boundless energy and a mischievous streak in the younger elephants, chasing the smaller mammals away from the water, just for the fun of it.

And that's how we spent an extremely pleasant couple of hours, photographing the elephants at the Okaukuejo water hole. What started with some nice shots of an old bull just hanging around the waterhole ended up being a great afternoon, photographing the whole herd just having fun.
(My apologies to my wife, in transferring shots from her camera to the laptop, I deleted around 100 files, much to my embarrassment and her annoyance)

Cheers

DADFAP

Rhino poaching court case

2010-10-12T18:24:00.000+10:30

I've posted a few times on the Rhino poaching epidemic that is plaguing South Africa but finally, I can tell you about some of the scum bags that have been caught and charged.

These are not poor subsistence farmers who are doing this to eke out a living, no, these are educated, professional people who have been systematically purchasing and slaughtering Rhino simply to make some extra cash.

These are people who own game farms, who have purchased Rhino from KRUGER PARK in a sophisticated scheme, run by the game park owners in conjunction with vets and slaughtered them for their horn.

Scumbag Dawie Groenwald

If this bastard of an act was being perpetrated by some poor farmers to make ends meet, you could almost rationalise the act as a means for survival. Not in the case of the scum of the earth below, they were in it simply for the money, greedy, pathetic people who should be shunned and treated as the pariahs they are.

The bastards involved:

Scumbag Tielman Erasmus

Dawie Groenewald: he has also been fined for illegal hunting methods (canned hunting) by a US court

http://www.huntingreport.com/worldupdate.cfm?articleid=520

http://www.eyewitnessnews.co.za/articleprog.aspx?id=50264

This utterly despicable individual has reportedly been caught with 21 Rhino carcasses on the property.

Scumbad Sariette Grownwald

These people are beyond redemption and should have their farm confiscated and their pictures plastered on every possible website so that they are hounded wherever they go.

Please pass this on to people you know so that the plight of the Rhino, the positive actions of the South African authorities and the identity of the scum bags involved is known far and wide. The HAWKS (an elite branch of the South African Police) and South Africa National Parks (SANPARKS) have become extremely active in trying to curb the poaching of Rhino and successes such as these need to be broadcast far and wide.

Cheers

DADFAP

Still in Etosha

2010-10-08T23:39:00.000+10:30

We drove from Onguma Lodge to Eagle Tented at Epacha through the Etosha Park. It's an easy drive, well signposted and the roads well travelled so there's no concern about getting lost. One thing about being there in the winter or dry season, is that the amount of traffic on the roads generates a hell of a lot of dust and the vegetation gets absolutely coated in it. You can really imagine the bush just hanging in there, parched and covered in dust waiting on the summer rains to wash them clean and give them a chance to breath.

The road side vegetation looks at times as if it is covered in a light dusting of snow,although when you stop to take a look, the coating of dust really is quite thick.

The animals always find something to graze or browse on. This small impala really looks as if it's grazing on nothing but is probably eating the soil for it's mineral content. This is behaviour that you see all over the Etosha pan, the animals utilise the minerals in the soil. The birds have favourite areas on small banks and the elephants can be seen scraping away at the soil surface to get to the minerals that they want.

All sorts of animal behaviour is in display when you are watching animals, not all of it immediately apparent or obvious. You'll as no doubt, why I have included a picture of an Oryx (also known as Gemsbock) peeing. Simple really when you understand a little about these animals. They go extended periods without drinking any water when they have to. They are incredibly well adapted to the desert environment in which they live. The classic pictures that you see of the Oryx standing proudly atop a dune is behaviour designed to allow them to catch even the slightest hint of a breeze to cool themselves. They also "fool" the body into thinking it is cool by deliberately cooling the blood flow to the brain more than the blood flow to the rest of their bodies. If there ever was an animal that has adapted to life in the harsh deseet environment, it's the Oryx. So when you think of it, to see an Oryx peeing is quite unusual.

Although we have normally been to Namibia in July, the so called wet season, we've never had any shortage of animal sightings, the dry season does concentrate the animals at water holes, so you end up doing less travelling for more sightings. We spent some time at a water hole near Okaukuejo watching the animals at play in and around the water hole. Try and count the number of zebra in the photo to the left, you can understand looking at this shot how predators can be fooled by their markings and not really know where to launch their attack.

When you spend enough time at the waterholes, you really do start to anticipate what the animals are likely to do in most circumstances, you'll see zebra rolling in the dirt taking their dust bath or mothers nursing their young but all the while there will be one of the herd, probably the dominant stallion keeping a look out on what's going on around the water hole.
It's pretty hard not to get engaged by the animals when you are photographing them. But, I think that makes for a better photograph, if you're just mechanically snapping at everything that just happens by then you may as well send a robot, the animals all have personalities ( don't worry, I am not anthropomorphising ) and there are times when you can see from the actions of the animals that there's the possibility of an interesting shot coming up.
The Zebra have incredibly sight and hearing and with the numbers that are around the waterholes, they end up doing sentry duty for the other animals. When a Zebra decides to scarper, you'll see every other animal in and around the waterhole take flight too.

Cheers

DADFAP

Action on Rhino poaching in South Africa

2010-10-07T23:36:00.000+10:30

There finally seems to be some real action taking place on one of the worst problems on the African veldt, that of the barbaric, senseless slaughter of Rhino to satisfy the "traditional medicine" market in South East Asia.

NATGEO Article

Cheers

DADFAP

More on Etosha

2010-09-21T04:10:00.001+09:30

Etosha is more than just madly dashing from one waterhole to another, although when your day is planned out, that's what you do. It's just that you do it in an organised fashion, the best idea is to head out at the crack of dawn having picked a waterhole to head to the evening before. The gates open at sunrise and close at sunset, so if you head off to one of the farther waterholes from which ever camp you are staying at, you can be in for a long day.

What we'd like to do one day is to head to Etosha for a couple of weeks and spend a few days at each camp, focusing on a waterhole a day. Get there as soon as you can, spend the day there and take a series of photos throughout the day, documenting what comes and goes throughout the day.

There's a fair variety of animals that come and go as well as bird life. There's the birds that endemic as well as the migratory birds that come and go. The guys on the left are Kori Bustards, the heaviest of the flighted birds in Africa, they are big but not ungainly and look so solid, they would probably dress out with enough meat to feed a large family with some left overs for the next few days.

One of the more unique things that we saw on one of our days there was a group of male giraffes who were fighting. Our guide thought at first they they were just posturing, seeing who was the largest and sizing each other up. The photo at the right shows them taking a quick drink before they got down to business. Almost in unison, they paired off and started what looked like a dance, their necks were like the snakes that you see intertwined supporting each other as they wound their way across the veldt. All of a sudden, started swinging their heads with intent, obviously trying to deliver a great whack to each other. We were about 100 metres away and you could hear the almighty thump as their heads landed on their opponents flank. It really was something to watch, it was fascinating, it looked as if it was happening in slow motion (a trite and overused term but it really was like that!).

Take a look at the photo to the left, there's dust flying everywhere, their necks are bent around trying to beat the crap out of their opponent and there's the third guy just looking on waiting his turn. All of this went on for quite some time, they would stop for a short time and then resume beating the each other up. This was really only their pre-courtship time, it's serious but not intended to inflict serious harm on each other. For that they lash out with their hooves, something that's generally reserved for the big cats, the lions, that hunt them, and yes, a pride of lions can take one of these down, we actually see the results of that later in our trip.

Later in the evening, just before we had to dash to the Von Lindequist Gate, situated on the eastern edge of the park, we decided to take a quick detour round a waterhole where we had seen a rhino earlier in the day. I wouldn't call it a sighting, he was deep in the bush and really only a silhouette against the blue sky, that's about it no photos.

We were driving along quite slowly when we saw two baby giraffe just quietly hiding just off the side of the road. These two little guys ( a relative term when you think they weigh well over 100kg and fall 2 metres to the ground when they are born) were quietly observing us just passing by, not moving much, just swivelling their heads to keep track of us.

Not a bad way to end the day!!

Cheers

DADFAP

Etosha, the Gem of the Namibian Wildlife Parks

2010-09-17T16:42:00.000+09:30

Etosha, situated about 350km north of the capital Windhoek, is the largest of the wildlife parks in Namibia. Generally speaking, it's well organised with the Namibian Wildlife Resorts, a government company is responsible for the resorts within the parks. The camps on the periphery, which supply a lot of the day traffic through the park, are privately owned and generally have traversing rights within the park. Image via WikipediaThe park accounts for about 45% of the revenue generated by the National Parks in Namibia, attracting 200,000 visitors each year.
NWR has spent a lot of money improving the facilities at the camps, when we were there a few years ago, they had just started the renovations at the camps and the concern expressed by many was the NWR were about to embark on a campaign to drastically reduce the camping and lower / mid tier accommodation, instead focusing on the higher end tourist trade.

One of the biggest problems with government parks, including those in South Africa is that you need to be within the resort gates by sunset, great idea from an organisation standpoint but it means that you miss many of the late afternoon sightings at waterholes that you can get at the private reserves. On balance though, Etosha is a great place, animals galore, facilities that are available to people staying within the resorts and day trippers.

Anyway, about this trip, we stayed a few nights in and around Etosha and I'll spend a couple of posts on this part of the trip. Follow the link highlighted in the previous sentence, it goes to a NASA site where there's some history on Etosha and a great photo of the salt pan.

We stayed at Onguma tented lodge after we left the Waterberg Wilderness, this is near the Anderson gate at the eastern edge of the park. The closest of the NWR camps is Okaukuejo Camp which is particularly well known for the floodlit waterhole there. We got some awesome shots there of a large herd of elephants descending (and yes I do mean descending as everything else around the waterhole scarpered when the elephants arrived) and the other animals frequenting the waterhole. All in all, some of the best shots that we got in and around Etosha were shot in one short period at Okaukuejo.
Onguma has only 4 chalets, it's extremely intimate focusing on providing exceptional service to the guests there. The food is exceptional, providing the best Eland steaks I have ever had and the staff go out of their way to make sure that you are having an exceptional time.

Directly outside the lodge they have a waterhole designed to maximise viewing potential and that's the first place we had ever seen giraffes drinking, it's not exactly beautiful but they manage it with a degree of elegance that belies their size. Take a look at the guy on the right, we caught him as he was lifting his head, water is cascading from his moth as he lifts his head. Oh yeah, something interesting, a giraffe has the same number of vertebrae as a human being, just they are a tad larger! This waterhole was well visited by other animals too, we say a hyena (which we were too bloody slow to photograph) and plenty of antelope. We also spotted this black back jackal in the area around the lodge. These guys really are intriguing creatures, the seem to skulk around everywhere, around lodges, picnic sites, harassing lions and generally scavenging what ever is on offer.
When you take a look at the photograph of the pan in the link above (Etosha) you get an idea of the size but not of the effect on the park. Having been there in the height of summer seeing what it is like then, the shimmering on the horizon is there but it's not like in summer when the shimmer is there and coupled with the heat blasting off of the salt encrusted surface of the pan. The zebra in this photo were just kind of hanging around, one of them was rolling in the dust taking a bath the others just standing keeping him company.
There's a surprisingly large number of animals who loiter on the pan throughout the day, even during the middle of the day when, even during the winter season, the daytime temperatures make the place pretty inhospitable.

Interestingly, the soil in the pan plays a very important role in the life of both the animals and the surrounding environment. The animals eat the soil for the minerals, it provides the missing minerals and trace elements that is lacking in the vegetation. It also provides nutrients for the vegetation downwind of the park.
Etosha is the flagship of the whole tourist industry in Namibia, it;s deserving of this because there is everything there that you could want to see and the facilities are pretty good. NWR also has a lodge within the park that we haven't stayed at yet, we haven't stayed there yet, so that gives us yet another excuse to head down there when we get the opportunity.

Cheers

DADFAP

The Rhino we met at Wilderness

2010-09-08T01:31:00.000+09:30

I am going to start this blog answering a question that I received from a friend of mine about the comment I made about the argument between conservationists and preservationists. basically, it was "what's the difference between a preservationist and a conservationist?"

In my mind the preservationist argument is completely unreasonable, they want to shut off huge tracts of land and let them become what they were.

The conservationist view is that nature and man have to co-exist and that we need to find a way to manage the environment in a sustainable way, providing for a growing population and allowing the wild life to have as natural a life as possible.

Wilderness Lodge: One of the lodges we stayed at was the Waterberg Wilderness lodge where we stayed for 2 nights. It's well up into the Waterberg Range, not quite on the plateau, about 200m or so below it. When you drive up from the plains, along the track that winds through the scrub, pretty steep in places you start to wonder where you're headed. Persevere as it's worth the journey.

When you take the final turn and you see where the lodge is situated, hard up against the rock wall, you get a hell of a surprise. There are banana trees, coffee plants and a wide variety of "exotic" plants there. Most of these are remnants of previous agricultural enterprises that have been attempted on the site of the current lodge.

It's an enjoyable lodge for 2 nights, I think that 3 would be a stretch as it's not a lodge with an abundance of wildlife. The food is good as is the staff, the rooms are reasonably large, clean and have decent sized bathrooms. As I mentioned in my last post, the "cultural bias" of the lodge was obvious here too. The vast majority of the clients of this lodge were German, mostly families enjoying the summer break. We met one guy who I am sure, given the opportunity would move there in a heartbeat, he spends every vacation that he can there, enjoying the opportunity to just get out and walk in the veldt.

For me, the highlight was the Rhino. Our first game drive was the afternoon we arrived there and about 30 minutes into it I was wondering what they were going to find to keep me entertained. We had been driving a little over 30 minutes when the guide stopped the vehicle and jumped out, I asked him why he was stopping and he said so that we could get out and walk to the Rhino. I have to tell you people, that I was using the other passengers as traction, I wanted out and near these beasties so bad!!!

We walked into the bush for about 250m and there they were, just strolling through the bush, we ended up about 15 metres from them, unfortunately it was pretty thick bush and the photos were rubbish. Mind you, I was edging as close as I could, trying to position myself ahead of where they were headed so that I could get better shots. Mrs Dadfap and I got scratched all over our legs and arms by the thorny acacia, we didn't even notice most of them in the excitement. I snagged one of my ears on a thorn bush and didn't even notice it until I was back in the vehicle and wiped some blood off of my neck. I could hardly wait until the next afternoon when we could have another crack at them.

Day two came along and as we had the afternoon game drive ahead of us, we decided to join the hike up to the escarpment. It was a killer, especially for someone as unfit as me but again, it was something worth persevering and getting done. When you are up there, it's breathtaking, the plateau is home to the only herd of buffalo outside of the Caprivi Strip, elsewhere in Namibia they are banned because of the diseases they spread to the domestic livestock.

The escarpment is also home to many of the antelope species that inhabit the plains below. It also has some fig species that seem to grow from the smallest of cracks in the rock, sending their root system down the face of the rock to anchor the trees into what soil there is. It would be an awesome place to overnight, watching the sunset on one side and the sunrise on the other side of the escarpment.

Back to the Rhino. Knowing what to expect on the afternoon game drive, all I could think about was the Rhino and the opportunities we'd get to walk near and photograph them. Because of the poaching that goes on and to make them easier to find, there's a security guy with the Rhino all day. He starts with them at 6 in the morning, tracking them from where he left off the previous evening. And yes, he really is as close as he looks in the photo to the left.

Walking up to these two rhino is made all that much easier because the female required extensive veterinary attention when she was fairly young. The male was introduced to keep her company and both have become "relatively" comfortable around people. The second afternoon really was quite funny, we walked as close as we could to the rhino who were resting, they saw us coming and decided that it was time for them to get up. Now, when they are lying down or when you are in a vehicle looking down at them, they don't seem so big. Trust me, when you are on foot close to them, they look absolutely huge. As we walked towards them, they decided to start walking straight at us, what ensued was a pair of rhino mustering us like dumb sheep back from whence we came. They quite literally herded us all back to the vehicle.

I was more interested in getting decent shots and often had to be "encouraged" by the guide to beat a retreat. To be honest, every time he suggested we move, I did, as anxious as I was to get decent shots, I sure as hell didn't want to become part of the topsoil as one of them ran me into the ground. In all seriousness, it never even felt like it would get to that stage, the guides are very aware of what's going on, where their guests are and how to keep them moving so they don't spook the rhino.

As I said, they herded us right back to the cars with many of the passengers taking refuge in them. Staying as close to the rhino as I could I took some shots, trying to stay as close as possible but not making our guide too nervous. The rhino seemed to be having great fun, they wandered round the Landrover for a while, never really threatening or behaving in a threatening manner. In the shot above, I am about 20 metres from the boy, who weighs in at around 3000Kg, he's not fully grown yet, he still has aboit another 500kg to go.

The shot above and to the right is the male starting towards us, I am not at the front on my own, our guide is standing just to my right, he's pretty calm at this point, just telling me to move slowly and not make too much noise. The next shot is just before the guide and I moved back closer to the vehicles. The guide let the rhino get to within about 15 meters of us before he decided that I had pushed my luck enough. The amazing this is that the rhino was actually looking straight at us, I know that they don't have the greatest vision so I tried to move as casually as I could. What really surprised me was that it wasn't till I took the camera away from my eye, I realised just how bloody close he was. I heeded the advice of the guide and we slowly moved back to the vehicles.

The fun hadn't finished as yet. We left the rhino in peace and went off for that most civilised of African traditions, the Sundowner!!! really, really enjoyed these!!! As we were driving back to the lodge, we encountered the rhino again, obviously still in a playful mood. The male continued walking towards the vehicle, they normally move aside and into the bush as a vehicle approaches. The guide stopped the vehicle, turned off the engine and waited for them to move off. Instead, the male walked right up to the bull bar on the front of the Landrover, put his weight against it and gave a gentle shove. The vehicle moved back a couple of centimetres and the boy thought that he had made his point, I am big enough to make a difference if I want to!! This was only our second lodge and I was beginning to wonder already if this would be THE highlight of the trip.

Rhino's are right up there in my mind with Wild Dogs as being the most engaging animals in the veldt, they also share the unfortunate status of being amongst the most vulnerable animals on the continent. Wild Dogs are THE most endangered of the large carnivores, Rhino (some species of the White Rhino anyway) aren't as close to extinction as the Wild Dogs, but judging by the reports in the following article, they won't be far behind.

Two more Rhino gunned down in South Africa

There are plenty of societies and organisations you can join in an effort to battle this callous and bloody murdering of wildlife, one is on my Blogroll on the right.

Cheers

DADFAP

Epako Lodge, Erongo Namibia

2010-09-04T05:44:00.000+09:30

Our first lodge of this trip was Epako Lodge in Erongo about 3 hours drive north of Windhoek, a nice easy drive out from the Capital. It didn't take long before we saw some baboons, driven from the extremely dry bush to try their luck in the highway dividing strip. We hadn't driven much more than 15km from the centre of town when we encountered the first troupe busy digging up their morning meal.

This was our first trip during the summer and the difference between a trip in July and a trip in February is amazing. Even though the annual rainfall in Namibia (if you exclude the Caprivi Strip in the north of the country) is around 36cm (14.5") a year because it all falls in a short period the effects over the wet season (Jan - Mar) are amazing. The bush quite literally explodes during that short period and the whole countryside is completely different.

Our trip earlier this year was in February when the average precipitation is 8cm, fast forward to July / August and it drops to nil. Some of the shots that we took will show this, in later posts to the blog, you'll see the difference.

Epako lodge is a pretty enjoyable lodge, it's run by a very cheerful French guy and his Dutch wife. They have been there for around 15 years and in Africa for 30 or so. Get to talking with them if you go, some of the stories he can tell about working in West Africa just go to show how much "fun" that part of the world can be.

The lodge has a good variety of game and provides enough variety to keep you occupied for a 2 night stay. We managed to see a number of the more elusive creatures of the African veldt this trip and at Epako we saw the first of them, an Aardvark.

The food is pretty good too but for our tastes, the presentation and whole dining experience is a little too European for us. Something that was more noticeable to us on this trip, much more than any other, was the "cultural bias" of the lodges where we stayed. If the host was French, German or of other European extraction, the clientele was overwhelmingly from the same country, this hadn't stuck out quite so much for us in previous trips.

Epako has a family of Rhino, the female is now too old to breed but she has a calf at foot, he's a couple of years old now and just about ready to be shown the door. The first evening we were there, the male came and joined the group by the waterhole and started to become a little amorous.

You can see in the photo at the left, she wasn't too happy about the advances from the big male and tried to see him off. She had a scar along one side of her head that was the result of an earlier encounter with the male. She also has a weird large horn that bends forward rather than the normal curved rear facing normal shaped horn. Apparently, she lost her horn when she was very young when she charged a vehicle and it hasn't grown back in the normal shape.

The two of them had a protracted game of push and shove, the male weighs in at around 3500Kg, substantially larger than the female. She didn't back down too much though as you can see from the shot to the left, there was plenty of dust kicked up by the two.

As I said, things are pretty dry in Namibia at the moment and Epako was feeding out hay to the larger grazers to keep them in decent shape. They harvest the long grass by the road side and bale it up as farmers would cereal hay. There are two advantages to this, a cheap source of roughage which will at least keep the grazers fed and it reduces the potential for road side fires. There was plenty of evidence of this as we toured around, small spot fires that had been extinguished.

Like many lodges, Epako had some of the large cats in captivity, held large camps (African term for paddock) and we had the opportunity to feed these beautiful creatures and photograph them. Epako keeps a couple of Cheetah that are fed by the tourists each evening. These obviously have become used to this and can't be released.

I really have mixed feelings about these types of arrangements and even photographing the animals in these situations even if they do provide some great shots. The animals clearly cannot be released due to the increased familiarity with and dependence on humans for their food, however, if they have been trapped and then released into these enclosures it's because they have been preying on livestock and valuable game on commercial game farms.

It's not exactly conservation in the true sense but it's much better than the alternative, being seriously wounded in a snare by poachers or poorer farmers in an attempt to protect their livestock.

There is massive debate in Africa over how to protect the land, the wildlife, traditional cultures while the various countries progress. There's the argument between conservationists and preservationists as well as the farm lobby and the green movement, as there is in other countries. There is also the problem in Namibia of the death of the San Bushmen culture, with some believing that the culture will become almost extinct within the next generation or two.

Although we love the country and enjoy ourselves immensely there, there's much that as a tourist we don't get to see nor do we completely understand the problems. It is however, a country with enormous potential and there are some very innovative, forward thinking and dedicated people working towards viable solutions to the conservation issues. More on them later as we visited places on this trip dedicated to providing solutions.

Cheers

DADFAP

Some HIGHLIGHTS of the trip

2010-08-26T02:15:00.000+09:30

1. 21 days, up as early as possible (around 0530), unlike a lot of people, we're more active when we are on holiday than when we're not.

2. Around 4200Km driven and 4000 photographs, that's almost 1 shot per KM or 190 shots per day (thank God for digital photography)

3. We walked with Rhino, yes walked damn near them, at Waterburg Wilderness lodge.
4. We saw a male leopard who had successfully hunted a Kudu dining at his leisure late in the afternoon.

5. Saw a Small Spotted Gennet (one of THE most elusive animals in the African bush) late one night on the way back to Erindi Lodge for dinner. Unfortunately, the shot is taken late in the evening and under red filtered light. The shot isn't great but it shows the wee beastie.

6. And THE highlight for me, 14 orphaned wild dog pups at Naankuse, a fantastic experience working with these animals, the most endangered of all of the large carnivores in Africa. (Check out my Blogroll, there's a site there that you can go to and make donations that directly help the efforts to save these beautiful animals)

There will be more on the blog and on the website soon, with so many outstanding moments to consider and photographs to go through and edit, it'll take some time but hang in there, there are some beautiful shots as well as some funny stories.

And we owe a huge thank you to Hannelie, the travel agent we used in Namibia, more on her later but she's HIGHLY recommended by both myself and Mrs. DADFAP.

Cheers

DADFAP

On the way back!

2010-08-22T00:20:00.000+09:30

We're sitting in the Emirates Lounge in Joburg International on our way back having our last Amarula (Google it, it's the best!). What a trip, we've walked with Rhino and have the shots to show, walked on the top of the Waterburg Escarpment, seen leopard on a kill, seen the hyena that pushed the leopard off of his kill, seen lions dining on giraffe, seen spotted gennet, aardvark, ardwolf and honey badger AND cleaned up after wild dog puppies (they are SO COOL).

So, standby for a series of posts on our travels, some funny and some serious. Subscribe by clicking on the button on the right hand side of the page so that you don't miss out.

Cheers

DADFAP

Driving in Namibia

2010-07-23T23:15:00.000+09:30

Travelling through Namibia is comparatively easy, there's little traffic and the roads are generally in good condition. They grade them A, B & C much like other countries around the world with A being black top and B and C being gravel. Driving is on the left hand side of the road (the side God intended!)

Even the C grade roads are generally in good condition, regularly graded and well sign posted. Last time we were there we took the "scenic" route between Swakopmund and Windhoek, basically because we missed a turn off, it was well signposted, we just weren't looking as our concentration was on Biltong, dried meat with spices. Every time we go to South Africa or Namibia, one of the first things that we buy is a big bag of biltong and wurst (sausage).

Anyway, back to the trip to Swakopmund. Missing the turn wasn't the worst thing we could have done because we travelled through some stunning, and very dry, country where the farms such as they were they must struggle making a living. Australia is the Sunburnt Country, Namibia must be the Parched Country. Beautiful but dry!

Here's a beautiful Oryx that we spotted on the C28 when we were driving to Swakop, he was grazing peacefully on the side of the road when a pain in the arse pair of tourists (us) came passed and spooked it. It took off and pelted along the side of the road easily outpacing the car that we were in, not that we wanted to chase it, we'd already spoiled it's day enough. It just goes to show that you don't have to go to the hot spots of Etosha to see wildlife in the wild.

I said dry earlier, didn't I? This is the pub at Walvis Bay mid morning when the mist has rolled in from the South Atlantic Ocean. makes the place pretty dim and dank for a wee while until the sun burns it off. We met a guy who used to be in the South African Army, stationed in Walvis Bay and they used to get paid a "rust allowance" Why was the South African Army in Namibia?? Although Namibia gained independence from South Africa in 1990, it was not until 1994 that Walvis Bay was handed over to the Namibian Government.

I don't know if it's come across to my devoted readers but Mrs Dadfap and I are pretty keen on Namibia. It's a fantastic country, plenty of scenery and people who know how to enjoy themselves. Really looking forward to our upcoming trip!

We'll post to the Blog when we get the chance while we are there, so don't miss out and click the RSS subscribe button to keep up with all the latest fun and adventures.

Cheers

DADFAP

2010-07-21T02:31:00.000+09:30

THE PELICANS OF WALVIS BAY

A few years ago when we were living in Saudi Arabia, I saw a programme about these two “mad as hatters” guys from Botswana. They were Mad Mike & Mark, one was a stills photographer and the other a video camera man, they had such passion for what they did and looked like they were having such fun that it was infectious, I used to be on the look out for what ever programmes came on featuring these two, what can only be described as, nutters.

They looked like they were willing to damn near anything to get the shot they were after and pushed things a little further into the unknown than would generally be considered healthy. Then as you start to watch them, although enthusiastic and apparently suicidal, it dawns on you that they have studied enough of animal behaviour to really understand how far they can push the animals and their luck.

These two guys were what prompted our first visit to Namibia, thanks guys ……………. we’re headed off on our third trip to Namibia!

There has been plenty written about Namibia. From it’s colonial history, to the period of administration by South Africa and then the post apartheid era, it remains one of the least known of the “tourist destination” countries in Southern Africa.

What strikes you first about Namibia is the contrast in the people to those you meet in South Africa. Namibia, or South West Africa as it was formerly known, was administered by South Africa for many years and felt the restrictive and oppressive influences of Apartheid.

When you meet the people in the airport, in Windhoek and then in other centres, you come away with the feeling that they have consigned any post-apartheid hangovers to the past and are working hard to develop a modern nation, remembering but not dwelling on the injustices of the past.

Anyway, getting back to my two favourite nutters. Part of their programme was shot in Walvis Bay where they took one of the daily boat trips to view the attractions in and around the bay. The highlight of this episode for me was the pelicans, the most photogenic of birds, who appear on cue (trained without doubt by tourists like ourselves) when the bucket of fish is produced.

They come in individually and in small squadrons, all posing beautifully for the camera.

One was close enough to me that the tip feathers brushed the peak of my cap as I was photographing it flying past me.

Others just come alongside checking you out, making sure that they pose beautifully for the shot.

Most of them know exactly why they are there. It works for them and the photographer!

And most of them are damn good catches too!

The pelicans were what we went to Walvis Bay for and we came away with some great shots and a belly full of Walvis Bay oysters. Did I forget to mention that you stop for a while for drinks and oysters? Remiss of me, especially as they oysters were freshly shucked that morning and were absolutely fantastic!

Not far north of Walvis is the coastal holiday centre of Swakopmund. Swakop retains a very Germanic feel, as does much of Namibia, and is the place where all of the tourists head. Despite that, it retains a small town feel, much like the rest of the country, even the capital Windhoek.

When we were there in 2007, a trawler had managed to break free from it’s moorings, drift along the coast and run aground a few kilometers south of Swakopmund.

When we returned in 2007, the swells from the Southern Atlantic Ocean had almost completely obliterated it.

So, shortly we are off again on another Namibia adventure, travelling through the centre and northern parts of the country. One day we will head south to Luderitz and Orange River, there is just so much to see it is difficult to decide where to go!

Late afternoon in the Namib.

www.dadfaphotography.com

Cheers

DADFAP

We're off on safari again

2010-07-09T05:34:00.005+09:30

We're off again!!!!

We're off again, another trip to our favourite destination in Africa ............... Namibia. For 14 days we're going to be wandering around the northern half of the country with some time in the world renowned Etosha National Park for some more photography.

This is the middle of winter (the dry season) so we're going at the best time of year for game viewing. All of our other trips have been in the summer (wet season ........... in Namibia? yes they do have one, albeit pretty short) for our trips to Namibia and South Africa when the bush is at it's thickest. We have had pretty good luck in the past with game viewing even then so with some luck, we'll have plenty of pictures to put on our website and the blog pages.

Don't forget to check the website out every now and then. In the last few days I've added a map of Namibia with pictures from our Flickr account (http://www.flickr.com/photos/24284119@N00/) so check that out too.

One of my upcoming projects for the website and blog is a series of photos of the pelicans at Walvis Bay, they were featured on a show that we saw many years ago when we were living in Saudi Arabia. The show was on National Geographic by a couple of guys called Mad Mike and Mark, see their shows via the following link, these guys are absolute nutters!!! http://www.marktennant.com/madmikeandmark.aspx. These were the guys who first interested us in Namibia, what grabbed our attention was the pelicans they photographed in Walvis Bay, so we went to Namibia, spent 2 weeks there and included the photography opportunity in Walvis.

Now, if only I could get a full time gig like that!!!!!

Cheers

DADFAP

Here it is!!!!!!!!!!!

2010-06-29T15:58:00.000+09:30

Here's the new website, it was up and running a little quicker than I thought!

Please let me know what you think!

Cheers

DADFAP

http://www.dadfaphotography.com/

The new, NEW website

2010-06-28T03:50:00.000+09:30

Remember a couple of months ago I said I was working on a new website ..............?

It's just about done!!!

Just another 2 or 3 days!!!

The excitement mounts!!!!

Here's a couple of the shots that are in there:

Naankuse

2010-06-13T01:47:00.000+09:30

I've mentioned a couple of times that we'd been to Naankuse in Namibia and that I'd get organised and do a post on it. So, here it is ................ at last.

Namibia is a great place and each time we've visited there or South Africa we've had a great time. We've treated ourselves to some high end lodges, mid level and also B&B. This time our trip was centred around 10 days volunteering at Naankuse. This volunteer lodge is situated less than an hours drive from Windhoek, the Namibian capital.

The South African Airlines flight from Johannesburg was late and then encountered weather radar problems, so they delayed departure for about 45 minutes until they fixed it. Just as well too because there were some serious rain storms between J'oburg & Windhoek. Anyway, as usual we found the flight crew to be amongst the best we have flown with. One guy got on the plane with a bloody great overcoat as he'd just come out of Europe somewhere and was very reluctant to give it up. The steward thought this was pretty bloody funny and asked him if he realised that he was heading to the desert. The guy responded in a good natured way and thought the question was hilarious.

We were picked up at the airport, one of the smaller you will ever go through but in keeping with everything else in Namibia is spotlessly clean. The trip out to the lodge bypasses the city completely and heads out to the lodge about 45km NE of the airport.

The main focus of Naankuse is animal rehabilitation & re-homing of what have been classed as problem animals. They operate a release and monitoring sites in the Namib-Nakluft and the Namib Rand national parks.

The coolest thing about volunteering here is the amount of hands on time that you get with the animals. Every day you get to do different activities: feeding baboons, taking some of the smaller creatures out for a "walk", walking the semi tame cheetah and taking the baby leopards out for their daily saunter through the veldt.

Nothing beats this, you get to handle, feed and groom the animals, large and small.

The highlight for most is walking with the baboons, every couple of days you get to walk out with the troupe of senior baboons. Most of these have been bred in captivity and or rescued from all round Namibia with the exception of Big Mamma, the matriarch of the troop. She's born wild and has adopted the captive troop. The males are all desexed or they would have the large canines that mature adult males develop.

I got really friendly with one of the second tier males, Jeffrey. Jeffrey had been abused when he was younger and had some behavioural problems and was now a bit of an obsessive compulsive when continually scratching at his chest. He'd come up to the fence and dance and pirouette and absolutely love it when I copied him on the other side of the fence.

The facilities for the volunteers are reasonable, they are kept clean by the Bushmen staff that are employed around the camp. These guys are a joy to watch, they always have the biggest grins on their faces as they go about their work. The head tracker is also a Bushman who really loves the animals and his job, it was fantastic out walking with animals in his company, when he didn't know wasn't worth knowing.

As I said, the coolest thing about spending time at Naankuse is the hands on time that you get with all sorts of animals, large and small, tame and semi wild. The staff that work there, bushmen and the others all do the very best they can the facilities that they have. The place runs on faith, hope and charity with donations via the web, animal sponsorship and funds from the volunteers. There are times when the people organising the daily activities seem to be dealing with conflicting requirements: keeping the volunteers occupied and dealing with the needs of the owners which seem to be at odds with and take precedence over the daily activities.

I don't believe that the volunteers are as valued as they should be by Naankuse. The volunteers are of all ages, from all countries and from all walks of life. There are students on gap year activities, older people there for the opportunity to do something meaningful and people dedicating some time to the animals and the Bushmen clinic. While the standards of accommodation are OK the food was very second rate and inadequate, the shower / bathroom facilities only just adequate for the numbers and the canteen opens twice a week when it's the only facility on the place where you can buy extra things that you may need or want.

In reality, I think that the owners of Naankuse rely just a little too much on the good nature and hard work of the volunteers. It's the volunteers that make the valuable work at the lodge possible and they really are treated like poor relatives by the management.

It's a great place, make no mistake about that and was a great experience.

We got to get up close and VERY personal with some of the most beautiful animals that you'll see on the African veldt, animals that are generally seen at a distance or in the case of the ever more endangered wild dogs if you just happen to stumble upon them at the right spot at the right time. We talked with people who had spent much more time in Afria than we had who had never ever seen these beautiful and much maligned animals anywhere except a zoo.

We got to go in a camp with them while we fed them, they were within 2 - 3 metres of us and I couldn't get enough shots of these wonderfully painted animals. When you are that close to them you really do get the opportunity to imagine what it would have been like when these animals had the run of the veldt.

On balance, it was a really great time, hands on with animals at a level that you can only believe when you have caracals rubbing up against you or leaping 2 metres into the air from a standing start right in front of you as they leap for food.

It's a great opportunity and they do some great work but there's no doubt in my mind that Naankuse relies a little too much on the good work of the volunteers and take a little too much of advantage of this.

Cheers

DADFAP

New Blog Layout

2010-05-11T04:14:00.000+09:30

Guys,

Here's a new blog layout. I thought that the other one was starting to look a little stale, besides which, I'm a fiddler. I'll fiddle with a layout till I get what I am after.

This one is a couple of weeks in the sourcing and formatting. No, I am not smart enough (yet) to be able to make my own Blog template, so I use ones available from the net.

Comments welcome, I'd like to hear what you think of the new format.

This little fella is a Meerkat at Naankuse, Namibia. He's one of the animals that we cared for when we were in Namibia on holiday. They really are as cute as you see on the TV in shows like Meerkat Manor. What they don't tell you is what bloody thirsty little beggars they can be.

Two of these little guys were in a smallish enclosure with some rabbits and their young as well as some tortoises (or should that be tortoisi????) and a small Spring Hare, aka a Veldt Kangaroo as it hopped all over the place. Looked as weird as anything you would see in E.T or Star wars.

Anyway, these vicious little buggers were gnawing the faces off of the baby rabbits and terrorising the tortoises so they were "quarantined"

A Day Trip In Libya

2010-05-01T01:45:00.001+09:30

Libya is a country replete with examples of modern, Italianate, Roman and Arabic architecture, all within day trip distance of Tripoli. Some of the best examples of the Italianate architecture is in Tripoli itself and Libya's second city, Benghazi.

We've shown shots from Leptis Magna in previous posts, and recently we visited Qasr AL Hajj, a fortified granary about 130Km from Tripoli.

The black and white picture is a view through some of the adjacent ruins to the wadi in the background. There are small ruins of outlying buildings etc. throughout the area as well as many abandoned, as well as a couple of well preserved examples of the local Troglodytes.(more on these further down)

It's an interesting place, built in the 13th century by a wealthy merchant, one Abdallah Abu Jatla. Originally, it had some 114 rooms, the same number as there are verses in the Qur'an although subsequent family squabbles (inheritance issues, the same all over the world, isn't it?) and the addition of cellars. The "rent" for one of these storage rooms was 1/4 of your yearly harvest, Abu Jatala was a bit of a local philanthropist and donated the "rent" to teaching the Qur'an to the local peoples.

It feels a bit like a set from a Star Wars movie, it doesn't take much imagination to imagine all sorts of other-world creatures inhabiting this place.

Or a scene from Lawrence of Arabia with Peter O'Toole playing Lawrence, long flowing robes, swirling around his legs as he takes aim at a Turk during the Arab revolt against the Ottoman Empire. It's that sort of place, a building that lets your mind run wild with possibilities.

View Larger Map

It's really quite well preserved with plenty of scope for wandering and imagining what it would have been like in the days when it was pretty much the commercial hub for the local area. Some of the cellars (added at a later date) still have earthenware containers that have been left by local farmers.

On our way to Qasr Al Haj we stopped at a local troglodyte, one of the original homes built 6-8 meters into the ground. There are plenty of derelict examples around the which are either fenced off or are used as animal shelter when needed.

The best preserved of the local troglodytes is open as a tourist attraction and is of interest to both local and "expat" tourists. The gentlemen who runs it is extremely interesting to talk to and was proud of the fact that his "house" was older than western history in Australia.

This is the view from the surface, not particularly impressive but when you take a look at what they have had to dig through, remember this is a parched land, stony desert that's baked as hard as iron during the summer. The effort to dig this would have been immense but worth it when you actually descend into the house where it's 22C all year round, according to the owner.

The rooms are all accessed through the central open air courtyard and it's easy to imagine the ebb and flow of daily life, there's plenty of rooms for the family and an elevated store room for supplies, well out of the reach of domestic animals and rodents looking for an evening snack.

The entrance (left) acts as a cooling wind tunnel as well as the access point for the courtyard. The breeze that comes through this tunnel is extremely refreshing, and would no doubt have been a welcome relief from the heat at the height of summer.

The central courtyard as well as being the centre of the house would be great as the focal point for the family activities. It doesn't take a lot of imagination to envisage a BBQ with a cold beer being enjoyed after a hard day doing whatever it is we do to keep the tax man happy. (Beer????????????? I forgot where I am for a moment)

Cheers and have a great weekend!

DADFAP

My New Web Site

2010-01-09T07:34:00.003+10:30

Hey, just a quick one today. I'm working on a couple of new websites, one in Flash and one in HTML so it's static. The Flash one is finished first mainly because I cheated and used a programme called WIX. It's an online Flash web building site and after a bit of practice you can get good results.
Here it is http://www.wix.com/dadfap/africa and as you can see it's mainly about our travels in Africa. It's a work in progress, so bear with me while I get some quirks sorted out and speed up the whole loading process. If you have comments I am looking forward to hearing from you. Especially inportant is feedback about how quickly the site loads.
I hope you enjoy it!

Cheers

DADFAP

Christmas Season in Tripoli

2009-12-27T18:20:00.000+10:30

The fact that the Christmas season is here in Tripoli is most noticable for one fact: there's a distinct lack of expats in town. They've all headed off to where ever they head off to at Christmas and for those headed to Europe or the US, best of luck. With the travel related issues caused by the snow, of yeah and now some daft bugger who wants to kill himself and some innocents in his way, I reckon you're much better off staying put and travelling in the off season. Helps not to have kids too.

Anyway, another thing about living here is that you need to leave your preconceptions at home. If you come here with "western" expectations it's going to be rough on you. You need to get over the fact that the the beef and chickens are freshly killed, cool but not refrigerated and not as well presented as we're used to. You also have to be ready for the way that things are presented.

Here's SMILEY, not so long ago he was running round happy as Larry, now he's smiling, not sure over what but he's smiling. He reminds me of the bad guy Aliens from the Bruce Willis movie, The Third Element.

Here's some rabbits in the Butcher's window, freshly dressed and ready for the pot. Oh, notice they are cold, they have Uggies. (Fur left on the feet)

Remember though, they probably taste pretty damn good, not that I like rabbit all that much but a few people we know buy them and assure me they are tasty!

You need to get over the fact that the vegetables are in small shops with sometimes hit and miss supply, that they are not all the same shape and size that we get presented with in the west and that they will have blemishes.

GET OVER IT!!! Personally I am sick of going to somewhere like Coles or Woolworths and getting told what I am going to shop for. Guess what, the veggies here taste like veggies not like they've been grown and pumped full of water to make the right shape and size that we're told is acceptable to us. Again, the veggies taste like veggies!!! And guess what, if you grow veggies at home do they always look like the fat and watery offerings from supermarkets? Nope, they don't. They have the odd blemish, they come in slightly different shapes and sizes but it's the taste that you're after........ isn't it?

Oh yeah, one last thing. When some moronic, headline grabbing, politically correct idiot in the West decides that we can't wish people Merry Xmas for fear of insulting or offending them, tell them to sod off and send them to Tripoli for Xmas. We may not have the lights, the Xmas specials of the decorations but what we have is people (mainly Moslems remember) who got out of their way to wish us Merry Xmas.

Cheers
DADFAP

Alas, no Ghadames

2009-11-24T05:17:00.001+10:30

Our trip to Ghadames has been cancelled, lack of interested people. A bit of a pain really as it's too late to plan something for the Eid weekend now.

HOWEVER, we are planning our 2 week vacation to Namibia now, we're headed to a place called N/a’an ku sê wast of the capital Windhoek. Namibia has to be one of the world's most beautiful countries, clean, friendly people, wild wildlife and stunning scenery. It will be our second trip there, this time not so much as tourists but we're volunteering at the N/a’an ku sê wildlife sanctuary. Go check the place out, it's N/a’an ku sê they have all sorts of projects for people to get involved in.

Here's a quick selection of some shots from our last trip:

This is down near the coast in the Skeleton Coast National park, it's so beautiful the way that the dunes and desert landscape just seem to blend into the sea. It's so damn dry there, even Libya gets more rain than Namibia.

The second one is sunset over the desert near the Rhino Camp at Palmwag in the Namib Desert. We'd been out almost all day looking for the desert elephants and giraffe, which we found by the way. These animals are awesome, the elephants and giraffe have completely adapted to such an arid environment. With their phenomenal memories they remember year on year and pass down through generational teaching where to find water or where to dig just below the surface for it. To actually see them in this environment is humbling when you think that they travel miles each day in search of water and food.

The photographic opportunities for landscapes and animals are fantastic. The places that you can get to see are breathtaking but it's a real shame that so much of the country is off limits due to the diamond mining. Namibia has the greatest percentage of land set aside as national parks but also has the greatest percentage of country off limits for the reasons I mention above.

The bird on the left was photographed on the road to Kamanjab when we were in Namibia in 2007. I like it because the bird seems to be staring straight into the lens, it has a real haughty look as if to say "oh yeah, here's another tourist".

One of the things that I find most interesting about Namibia is the fact that it was administered by South Africa for so long but doesn't seem to have the same post apartheid hangovers that South Africa has. The whole country feels more relaxed and at ease with where it is in the world right now.

Anyway, I hope you like the shots, we're looking forward to our next trip and bringing you some more shots to show how beautiful this country is.

cheers

DADFAP

In and Out of Libya

2009-11-05T17:40:00.000+10:30

I've been slack, no doubt about it but between work (yes in reply to one commenter I DO have a job) and some travel, the BOLG has suffered.

Mrs Dadfap returned at the end of Ramadan from her sojourn in Australia and as I had done the right thing I flew her up the front of the bus on Emirates. As she flew business her baggage was tagged priority, didn't mean a damn thing. The business class baggage came out of the plane last and we waited for an hour for it to come out. Moral of the story, arrive refreshed wait for your bags!

Travel: travel internally in Libya is surprisingly easy and cheap, not bad at all really. I know that Libyan airlines don't feature too often in Frequent Flier reviews etc. but I have nothing but good things to say about my experiences so far about Afriqiyah. Good planes, helpful staff both on the plane and on the ground, better than some American airlines that I have suffered with. I flew to Benghazi a couple of weeks ago with them on an Airbus (don't ask me which one!) and it's a good clean operation. I came back on Libyana which was OK too, except that the flight was about 90 minutes late without explanation. Now, I don't know if you've ever been to Benghazi but the airport's not really one where you want to just spend some time languishing in the waiting rooms.

Benghazi is a vastly different city to Tripoli. I know it's smaller but it has a completely different feel to it. The traffic is less manic, the people are more relaxed and it's cleaner. There are no piles of garbage lying around like you see in Tripoli, no trucks full of rotting household waste lumbering down the streets to dump it God only knows where, it's a nicer city all round.

We're off to Ghadames for the Eid later in November. It's another large set of ruins in the desert about 550Km from Tripoli. It's supposed to be an extremely interesting place so we'll have some pictures when we get back to post here. The picture above is from the Wiki page on Ghadames (shameful I know but at least I did the right thing with the credit). And no doubt some tales about the bus trip, yep, 550Km on Libyan roads in a bus!

Cheers for now

DADFAP

Post Eid Tripoli

2009-09-30T05:47:00.000+09:30

Well, we're back again, Ramadan and Eid have passed to be replaced by cooler weather and even rain. I don't know if you've seen it but there were floods in northern Tunisia last week, seems they were deluged. We've had a few light showers but nothing really to write home to Mum about. The weather here at this time of year is stunning, nice warm days, cool evenings and beautiful breezes. It's absolutley one of the nicest places to be here but we're told that we have a cold and windy winter to look forward to, a bit like an Aberdonian summer no doubt.
This place almost grinds to a halt for the month of Ramadan, even quieter than Saudi or Kuwait, there was always more to do there than we've found here. One thing that we are finding now though are some decent restaurants.
There's the Safir down by Green Square, it's about a 3 minute walk east past the coffee shop on Baladia Street behind the Grand Hotel. Pretty good food (try the Libyan Fish Tagine!!) and a stunningly decorated place. It's all decked out in Persian type tiles with arches and ornate corniches, really a nice place and the owner / chef / waiter is a really nice guy. Like all restaurants here, the menu is pretty limited and changed infrequently, what they do they typically do pretty well.
There are 2 pretty good Chinese restaurants along Gar Garesh road, they both have more extensive meuns than your typical Libyan restaurant, that's pretty standard about Chinese restaurants though, mainly variations on a theme. The one further up Gar Garesh road is called ABSand it's close to the Libyan Petroleum Institute. If you head along Gar Garesh road headed for Regatta Compound, the restaurant's about 1.2Km before the turn off to the compound.
The boss had her break in Oz while we had no hotel and I had a short trip to the UK, they still drink warm beer, maybe we'll be able to educate them at some time in the future to appreciate a nice cold beer.
Now, the driving (again) .................... the roads are slippier and even though everyone has a somewhat more even temper, no more fasting makes for more even blood sugar counts throughout the day, the number of accidents are amazing. Really, it's a miracle that there aren't more seriously bad incidents but I guess with the numbers of cars on the road, it's a little "safer"? (A relative term, I know).
Still no seagulls, where are they all??????????????

Cheers

DADFAP

Eating Harissa & Delivering Ice

2009-09-09T15:56:00.001+09:30

What have these two to do in common one may ask? Actually, they describe driving in Tripoli down to a tee! You see Libyans love their harissa: it's popular in North Africa and is a paste made up principally from chillies and garlic and like many condiments of it's type comes in a range of flavours from barely perceptible to rip your throat out and burn on the way out too.

People that I know here use it to describe their mood and their attitude to things, if they say they have eaten a lot of harissa then they're hot under the collar.

Well, what about delivering ice??? Easy, it's used to describe a driver when they're in a hurry. They're delivering ice, it's a bit of a reference to the fact that some numpty is doing Mach2 in a crowded road like Gar Garesh or overtaking and playing chicken with the oncoming traffic, who funnily enough tend to be accommodating and get out of the way of said idiots. Self preservation kicks in.

Now, when you combine the fact that it's Ramadan, it's late summer, no food or water since very early in the morning and they need to get home for Iftar you can see how the two go together to describe the driving habits here.

Driving, which is usually a fairly rough and tumble affair here has taken on the feeling of a full contact sport, so it's best to be off the road when people are trying to get home for Iftar. The flip side of that is that travel to work in the morning and getting out and about when everyone else is indoors is almost a joy!

Even something like filling the car is an adventure, does this pump work? is this filling station open? It's a bit like the Middle East, there's an African guy sitting at the pumps to fill your car. Something else I should tell you, it costs about 10LYD (AUD$9.9 or US$8) to fill my car, about 65 litres, so there are a few things that are cheap here. The picture shows the queue into the petrol station opposite the Thobacts hotel.

The moral of the story: Driving and harissa are a bad mix, so cool off on the ice you're trying to get delivered.!

Cheers

DADFAP

THE Anniversary

2009-09-01T20:41:00.009+09:30

It's the 40th Anniversary of the revolution here and it's the second day of public holidays, given that it's Ramadan, there's not an awful lot to do.

Tripoli is looking pretty good at the moment with the street decorations, the houses on the main streets have all received a coat of fresh, white paint and a lot of the rubbish has been cleaned up off the streets. That's one of the "little" things that I find it difficult to understand, the amount of litter on the streets, in the parks and worst of all on the beaches.

We went for a walk a few days ago, before Mrs. Dadfap was sent home, oh yeah on that. The government has commandeered a number of the hotels to accommodate "official guests" of the above mentioned celebrations so out we went, some home, some to alternative accomodation and some to ....................?

Anyway. back to the walk, we were out and about down by the old city and wandering about the back streets when we spotted some guys at work. These were coppersmiths and were working in typical street side style, open to everything. Anyway, they were intresting to watch at work while a shop keeper tried to get Mrs. Dadfap to part with some money, not likley sport! We were in Tangiers once and the shopkeeper told me that my wife bargained like a Bedouin woman, saves me plenty, she does! If she doesn't think it's fair then no sale, simple as that!

The more observant of you will no doubt have noticed the use of all of the necessary protective clothing that one would expect a person working in that environment to be wearing. Take a look at the item that was sent to me this morning by a colleague and see if you can figure out what the guy would have done in this instance. It's maybe a tad dated but it's still pertinent:

Melrose Drive, Tullamarine, Victoria, AU - January 16,2006, 14:35 hours: Highway patrol pulls over a Workcover inspector for doing 68 km/hr in a 60 km/hr zone. Workcovcr inspector says nothing and cops the $120 fine sweet. Policeman finishes writing ticket and proceeds back to his car. Workcover inspector gets digital camera out of bag, photographs the cop and proceeds to the police car - and issues the policeman with an $800 fine for not wearing his high-visibility vest when leaving his vehicle in a high-traffic area.

One thing that I've noticed here that's puzzled me, where are the bloody seagulls??? This is a coastal city yet I am yet to see a seagull. Not at the docks, not at the fish markets and not at the beach. One of the mysteries to ponder on when you're day dreaming!

Cheers

DADFAP

Leptis Magna

2009-08-27T02:56:00.016+09:30

As I said in my last post, a couple of weeks ago we headed about 120km east to the ruins of the Roman settlement at Leptis Magna. It was pretty bloody warm but worth the trip and we'll definately be ehaded out that way again when it's cooler.

We started out from the infamous Thobacts Hotel with me driving, the guide didn’t seem to mind although he had offered to drive. Given that I wanted to know how to get there for the next time, we braved my driving (or is it the driving of the others on the road?) and headed off. I need not have been so concerned about navigating for the next trip as there’s only one road and if you miss the turn off at Al Khums, Benghazi beckons about 6 hours later.

Go take a look at Wikipedia for a full history of the place but the long and short of it is that it’s the home town of the only African born Roman Emperor, Septimius Severus. Hence the main arch is the Arch of Septimius Severus and the town itself became the third most important place in the whole Empire. Not bad for somewhere that started out as a watering hole.

But, all good things must come to an end and Leptis Magna was Vandalised by Vandals (the tribe, not the Graffiti idiots) fell into ruins to be covered with sand until by archaeologists. The excavations have stopped for now and as far as I can find out, there are no plans for extensive digs to be carried out in the future.

The history is fascinating and thanks to the fact that it was hidden for so many years, it’s pretty much intact. The Arch of Septimius Severus has been extensively rebuilt, looking at the pictures showing the reconstruction it was almost completely ruined and scattered around the vicinity it’s in now.

The Roam Baths that are there are ingenious in their use of terra cotta pipes for heating the steam room. It’s amazing that way back then they had underfloor heating and central heating down to a fine art.

Don’t expect to be blown away by the souvenir shops or the facilities. They’re both fairly rudimentary

Anyway it’s very much worth the visit and the drive is fairly straightforward. Our guide, whom I would highly recommend to anyone wanting to visit anywhere in Libya, thought I drove like a local. Good or bad I am not sure but at least we survived.

Mrs Dadfap is back in Australia, the government here has appropriated many of the rooms in the “better” hotels for official guests for the 40th anniversary of the Revolution. Tripoli is a mess at the best of times, can you imagine what it’s going to be like with all of the road blocks etc. For official motorcades????????????

I found a saying on the net the other day that I’ve adapted to life here in Libya:

“Everything in Libya is logical, you just have to learn Libyan Logic!”

Cheers

DADFAP

Thobacts Hotel

2009-08-15T02:33:00.008+09:30

THOBACTS HOTEL
More on the Thobacts Hotel where we are now. The rooms are adequate but the restaurant and the coffee shop are seriously below par. The food is marginally better than the first hotel but could best be described as amateurish and of pretty poor quality, all this from a hotel that charges LD280 – LD310 (US$220 – 250) per night.

The staff are generally better than at the Asshajara Hotel but good training and improved customer relations skills would go a long way.

Talk about Comedy Capers though. Mrs. Dadfap, spent a whole week chasing down lost laundry. It all started with some laundry being returned with some items of mine missing, just a pair of shorts and a pair of 3/4 length pants of my wife's. The front desk responded with glazed looks, the duty manager was almost as bad. They did manage to deliver THAT day's laundry, at about 11PM that night even with a do not disturb sign on the door, annoyed but relieved that some of our laundry had returned, we shrugged and went back to bed. So next day she starts in earnest to try and track down the missing laundry.
She starts by going to the housekeeping staff who again look at her with a glazed look, moves on to the housekeeping manager who repeatedly assures her that it had been delivered around 4 days earlier, despite her protestations to the contrary and inviting him to visit our room and check for himself.

Anyway, those who know Mrs Dadfap will understand, her persistence paid off and she tracked it down in the housekeeping supervisor's office (along with some items even we didn't realise were missing) and yes, the earlier advice was right, it had been delivered on the date that he mentioned. Problem is to the wrong room and to a guy who advised the house keeper that he didn't wear female trousers. Fortunately, the house keeping supervisor, a lovely girl from Tunisia, was helping by now and with her help, we tracked it all down. It took a while, as do most things here but we got there.

TRIPOLI IN LIGHTS
Ramadan has started and preparations are well underway for the start of the celebrations for the 40th anniversary of the Revolution. Green Square has been cleaned and spruced up with lights and decorations as well as Omar Muktar street and the other streets leading down there.

There's been considerable effort cleaning up the streets and painting the street front buildings white. Where they have done all of the work, the city really does look like you would expect of a coastal city on the Mediterranean coast.

Oh remember in the last post regarding the dinner at the Corinthian Hotel and how nice the sunset was? We were there agin this week and again there was a beautiful sunset and this time we had a camera. Like I said, the sunsets are beautiful and the way the weather is at the moment, outside dining is just stunning.

A couple of weeks ago we travelled east to Leptis Magna to view the Roman ruins there. Stunning, absolutley brilliant and well worth the journey. Unfortunately, it was stinking hot so we only spent half the day there but we definately plan a second trip when it's cooler. Pictures next post as I said, it's a pretty interesting place, been around a while too!

Cheers

DADFAP

Tripoli, First Impressions

2009-08-15T01:55:00.009+09:30

FIRST IMPRESSIONS: After we got over the initial shock, we’re settling in. Tripoli is a place I’d been looking at for a few years to work in and the first couple of days I was beginning to think that I should have been careful about what I was wishing for. Anyway, as I’ve said, we’re settling albeit, still stuck in a hotel while we wait for our house to be completed.

We’re in the second hotel so far and by all accounts, this is supposed to be one of the better ones in town. I’ve travelled all over South East Asia, India, the Middle East and Europe and the hotels here are amongst the worst that I’ve ever encountered.

The first hotel was the Asshajara Hotel in Seedy Eassa Street and it had quite simply the worst food that I’ve ever encountered, it was simply inedible. There are dozens of expats living there, as there are in our second hotel and the complaints about the food were the same from all of them, so although I’d pass off criticism from one small group (i.e. ourselves) it’s the same from guests of all nationalities. The service was marginally better than the food, not saying much but at least there's’ room for improvement.

The food at the second hotel is really no better. It seems to me that hotels we’ve stayed at so far employ the worst possible chefs in order to minimise the numbers of restaurant staff and cleaning up required. However, the staff here area n improvement, they have a way to go but then again, the tourism industry here is in it’s infancy and they need good examples and training to progress.

We’ve eaten now twice at the Corinthian Hotel, the one “5 Star” hotel in town. The first meal at the upstairs outdoor dining area of the Venezia Restaurant was great, the steak that I had was well cooked and well presented. Mrs. Dadfap had pasta that was tasty but a little overcooked but the octopus salad that the third person at our table had was also delicious. Good food, good ambience and good company, not a bad evening, I really should have taken my camera as the sunset shots would have been stunning.

The Corinthian was let down by the second meal that we had there a few days later at the downstairs buffet. It’s beautifully presented but by and large it’s pretty bland. I had the salads and seafood and my wife had the salads and turkey, which really was the highlight of the meal. The beer was warm (even non-alcoholic beer should be chilled) and arrived about 10 minutes after being ordered, pretty tragic really when the restaurant had only 5 tables occupied. The service was pretty awful and a real disappointment after the experience at one of their other restaurants just a few nights earlier.

Tripoli has the potential to be one of the most beautiful cities on the Mediterranean coast. It has old world charm, interesting and unique architecture and a really quite wonderful climate but it needs cleaned up. There seems to be no interest in keeping the place clean which is truly a shame.

The next 5 years or so are going to see substantial changes in Libya and I think in Tripoli in particular, it’s going to be an interesting place to be.

With the exception of couple a short breaks in Australia, we’ve been expats for the better part of the last 15 years so we know this is only the beginning of our time here and that all of this fun will fade into the background. So, we’ll continue to live in Tripoli and get used to the differences between here and the rest of the world, after all, that’s a good part of the reason to be an expat.

Cheers

DADFAP

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