3 Sisters to the Lily pad Hut
It's amazing how sometimes the days that you think might be a total disappointment turn out to be the coolest. We were so excited for day 4 because we had a short hike and then an 8km paddle into a game reserve and our next hut. But that morning, Dave the trail manager called to say that the wind was strong, and it was coming mts to sea so we would have an 8km paddle upstream AND upwind with 2 canoes and a kid in each. No good. And Jeff and I fully agreed. That sounded like an epic in the making. So we opted for a car shuttle to the next hut. It made for an easy day as we settled in and then decided to explore the game reserve on foot and just take a day hike. But first we had to settle into the Lily Pad hut, which turned out to be the coolest hut of the whole trip! Ted and Sash quickly claimed a cabin and then created a new game of rolling off the top bunk onto a stack of mattresses on the floor. How they never managed to injure themselves on this trip is beyond me!
Our main deck:
Looking toward the adult cabin and the braai area:
Adult cabin:
Braai/kitchen:
We set out with lunch in our packs for a "short hike" to a picnic spot. Ted wasn't that keen to leave the hut but we told him that we were pretty much only going to hike to the dam. We spotted some Zebra right away:
There were tons of animals on the reserve and they were totally spooked by 4 people on foot! They see tons of people but all in safari vehicles so we had to walk really quietly and every time we spotted animals they bolted. Nyala:
We found this skeleton and we think it was a zebra. Ted took a bone and I snagged a rib to make a spoon with later.
Then we decided to bushwhack up the hill all the way to the entrance road following game trails. You can see the damn where we had promised to have lunch way in the distance!
Giraffes wondering who we are. They are used to creatures with 4 tires and multiple heads, not 1 head and 2 legs. We were freaky indeed!
We hiked a HUGE loop all the way around the reserve and then along the river. It was about a 3 hour hike and Ted never complained once even though it turned out to be much longer that we had advertised. Sometimes one thing just leads to another! We found a nice picnic spot on the river where we finally sat down and ate our late lunch. There were all these cool flowers with 2 kinds of color. These were yellow and pink and there were also identical flowers that were purple and white. Gorgeous!
Ted and his massive 5 pound bone that he carried for about 4 miles....
That evening we fired up a "donkey boiler" which is this cool thingamajig that heats up water in pipes. Hot showers for all! You can see the fire in the donkey boiler in the background behind Ted...
Then feeling very clean and refreshed, we decided to take "sundowners" to the game hide near the dam where we could sip our drinks and observe any animals that might be out there. It turns out that there were quite a few:
Animal observation:
We spotted this Mama impala and her baby:
It was a bummer not to get to do the paddle, but it had turned out to be a great day! And we decided to come back in Feb for a weekend trip just to do the paddle leg of the trail.
We had a great evening with dinner, reading and just hanging out:
Jeff was reading and Ted came over, sat in my lap, and passed out about 3 minutes later. These lap pass-outs are getting few and far between and I will cherish each one while I still get them!
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