The Oak is blooming and some nice trips

The oak tree which forms an integral part of our home has done its annual magical costume change as illustrated by these two photographs taken a few days apart.

Leon (my cousin) and me went on a quick visit to Bethlehem. We were hosted by Crause my youngest brother who operates his Air Ambulance Service and a flight school from there.

Our routing was through Vereeniging Oranjeville and Frankfort (where we had a great T-bone steak on the banks of the Wilge river) into Bethlehem.

The next Morning we went on a run through the valley of Clarence, Sunnyside and Golden Gate.

From there we went past Qua-Qua, Kestell, Reitz and so forth, this was noticably dry countryside but poised to turn into paradise by the first rains which cant be far off.

Leon's bike is fitted with a GPS which has this fantastic feature that allows you to download the record of a trip and lay it over Google Earth.

Th image above is of the Clarence - Golden Gate - Valley which is a real bikers dream with a smooth sweeping road in some of the most beautiful rock formations on earth.


That same evening I flew freight from Johannesburg to Port Elizabeth and the to Cape Town and back to Port Elizabeth. It was great to fly overhead the same area that we covered that same morning on the bikes.
The boeing I was flying that night (ZS-OBN) is of course also fitted with a GPS and this is a shot I took of the GPS on the last leg of the night just before sunrise with a healthy tailwind indicating that our groundspeed was 1079 Km per hour.

Juanita went on a road trip (She had a few days off in Kigali before her next flight to Ethiopia).

Apparently she went some seven hours driving south along the great lake of Tanganyika and when she gets back I will post her photos and other details of the trip.

Criss Crossing Africa and Spring is here!

The Kosmos Steyls are busy:- Hunting - flying - skate boarding - Spring cruising etc.

All my brothers and my father went hunting on a farm near Kimberley in the Northern Cape. Louis represented the Kosmos Steyls and managed to shoot a nice Blesbuck which is currently as I am writing being turned into Biltong in Bloemfontein.

Juanita is by far the busiest - on a trip covering the length of Africa - several times. She went from Lanseria to Kigali in Rwanda on to Germany for a few days then Rome then back to Kigali. She is now in Malawi and still has to go to Addis Ababa in Ethiopia back to South Africa and the to New York before the end of September.

Last week On Thursday night the skies over Johannesburg was full of Steyl Pilots. Johan Jr. came into Johannesburg flying freight from Windhoek. Louis brought a patient down from Harare and me myself flew 22 Tons of freight from Johannesburg to Cape Town.

On Friday I spent the day in Cape Town and was privileged to meet Tyla the grand daughter of Johan and Susan Steyl at a lovely lunch at their home in Newlands Cape Town.

Then on the week end the start of summer was celebrated with the seasons opening cruise on the Dam, a very spectacular event in which approximately 200 powerboats all cruise around the lake past the various boat and yacht clubs and then light the fires for the traditional braais at their own club grounds.

Tonight I am on standby to fly but if I don't get called out the plan is to take the Intruder for a spin to the Eastern Free State with my cousin Leon on his GS 1200 BMW.

De Wet Steyl passed away

My parents were visiting us at the Dam for a week and on Friday the 17^th of August my father called me early in the morning to inform me that his older brother – my uncle, De Wet Steyl passed away.

De Wet was the second oldest of four brothers and he was 83 years old. Over the Last Eight years he was suffering from a stroke and although he understood everything that was going on around him, he could not communicate with people, except for his immediate family with whom he developed a sort of coded communication.

De Wet was married to Nancy for 59 years and had three children Barbara Cathy and Christopher. Chris has been living in the USA for the last 20 years or more and he flew out to be with his mother for a few days.

On Tuesday afternoon at 14:30 a service was held in the chapel at Rosehaven where Christopher paid a moving tribute to his father.

End of Winter

As can be seen on the image below where I am standing on the snowswept stairs to the aircraft, it has been a hard cold winter in South Africa - this was on the morning of the 27th of June this year and since we are not used to this and geared for snow it took us nearly two hours to clear the wings and tail of the Boeing 727 of ice and snow with the help of the Fire trucks


We then flew down to Cape Town and back and was greeted by a Johannesburg covered in snow, something that only happens every 30 odd years.

Over the last few months we as a family was very busy Louis still flying in Zimbabwe and Johan Jr in Namibia, Juanita has been home for a while but is now on a trip to Rwanda - Tanzania - Germany - Malawi and then America.

My own schedule was rather hectic as I had to go for my annual simulator training early in July and this year it was in Bournemouth in the UK. At the end of July after only 4 days at home I did another trip to West Africa and only returned last week. Both these trips were marked with unusual weather - the well publicized floods in the UK occurred while I was there and disrupted everything especially flights from Heathrow. In the photo me and Flt Eng. Mike Melton and First Officer Steve Brits is standing in front of the simulator - for the non aviation types, this is a instrument that can drain all your energy out of you in a very short period (normal sessions are 2 hours a short break and another 2 hours) also known as a sweatbox and various other nicknames. As you can imagine, not most pilots favourite machine to operate but a very effective training tool, where engine fires, hydraulic failures and malfunctioning control surfaces are "normal"!

The tour to Monrovia had just as much rain but it was less disruptive since they experience an annual rainfall of 6000mm or SIX Meters and the drainage over the years have been shaped to accommodate the amount of water.

I have now been back in SA for a week and thank goodness the winter is at its end. We have put our house on the market and in this area property only really sells in the summer.

This coming week my Brothers and father are going on a hunting trip for Blesbuck Springbuck and Kudu in the Northern Cape near Kimberley, I cant make it, but Louis has flown down specially for this from Harare so in my next post I hope to tell about their experiences to get some biltong for their respective families.

Yammoussoukro and the "Vatican"

Since I have been flying around Africa for the last Thirty years I have become very used to chaotic slums and rusted tin shacks and general squalor of most African cities, and although I have flown into Yamoussoukro in the Ivory Coast on several occasions in the past I have never been there with the visibility being more than about 5000 meters.

Two days ago however the visibility was as good as it gets and I was treated to this fantastic view of the Cathedral and the city center, it took my breath away.

The cathedral at Yamoussoukro, known as the Basilique de Notre Dame de la Paix in english, our Lady of the Peace

I took the above photo from the cockpit as I flew over the Church

The following info I found on the Internet - Fascinating!!

Incongruously situated in the West African bush, the Basilica of Our Lady of Peace (French: Basilique de Notre Dame de la Paix de Yamoussoukro) in Yamoussoukro is the largest church in the world.

The Ivory Coast (Cote d'Ivoire) is only 20-30% Christian, with the remainder adhering to indigenous animist religions (25-40%) and Islam (35-40%). The great basilica was the project of the Catholic former president of the Ivory Coast, who wished it to be a monument to himself.

Côte d'Ivoire president Félix Houphouët-Boigny chose his birthplace of Yamoussoukro as the new capital of his country in 1983. As part of the plan for the city, the president wished to memorialize himself with the construction of what would be the "greatest church in the world." The president commissioned a stained glass window of his image to be placed beside a gallery of stained glass of Jesus and the apostles.

View from the basilica. Photo: John Spier.

The basilica was constructed between 1985 and 1989 at a cost of US$300 million. It was intentionally modeled after the Basilica of Saint Peter in Rome, whose size it intentionally surpassed to become the largest church in the world. The cornerstone was laid on August 10, 1985, and was consecrated on September 10, 1990, by Pope John Paul II. Like its model in Rome, Yamoussoukro's basilica is not a cathedral. The nearby Cathedral of Saint Augustine is the seat of the bishop of the Diocese of Yamoussoukro and the principal place of worship for the city.

The basilica has aroused much international controversy, for the lavish building glittering with Italian marble sits in the middle of an impoverished African city where only a minority of homes have running water and adequate sanitation, and the cost of the basilica doubled the national debt of Côte d'Ivoire. Despite this, many of the country's Catholics are proud of their monument.

I will be back in South Africa in a few days to have the Boeing 727 serviced and should be returning to Monrovia approximately the 6th of next month - June.

Weekend in The Eastern Freestate, Bethlehem, Clarence, Ficksburg and Rosendal

After having just returned from a lovely weekend in Namibia, we accepted an invitation from Crause (My youngest brother who owns an Air Ambulance service and a flight school in Bethlehem) to spend a weekend in the mountains of the Eastern Free state.

We took the bike down in order to really enjoy the scenery and nature and it was really a good time of the year - right at the end of summer to enjoy the rich colours of that part of the world.

The first night was spent in Bethlehem and we were joined by another two friends Francis Smit (Doctor) and Spik, both old recce boys. The next day we cruised through Clarence the little arty village that had its Easter Bazaar on the town square,
On the outskirts of Clarence we buy drinks and biltong.

to have a lovely lunch on the Caledon river (the border between SA and Lesotho) with a majestic view over the Maluti Mountains.

After lunch we rolled further south through Fouriesburg to the village of Ficksburg where we parked the Bike at a new Boutique Hotel "The Morrison"
The Morrisson Hotel in Ficksburg

that belongs to an old friend of ours, Nick van den Bergh from the days when both Juanita and myself were flying for Executive Outcomes in Angola and Sierra Leone.

We were then given a lift in Francis's car to Nick's game farm a few kilometers outside town on a gravel road where we spent the night and most of the next day, enjoying catching up on old days with Executive Outcomes and doing a game drive with a fantastic surprise where Nick took us to a high point on his farm where a small monument is erected for the guys that was killed in Angola and Sierra Leone. We then had a real farm brunch on the neighboring farm where Bonny, Francis's wife, farms with a Jersey Dairy.

After lunch we hoped to take a leisurely drive to the town of Paul Roux where Juanita's Mother's ashes was recently placed at the feet of her parent's graves, this did not work out so well because we had a mishap by losing Juanita's handbag followed by a damaged oil sump from


Between Ficksburg and Rosendal with Visierskerf in the Background

driving on a bit of bad gravel road and we had to call for help to be saved by Crause who had to come and retrieve us from Rosendal.

We spent the night in Bethlehem again and returned home on Easter Monday keeping well away from he busy N3 and routed via Oranjeville in the middle of the sprawling Vaal Dam. Luckily the bike was fixed the next day and is going well again.

Weekend in the Desert

On Friday the 30^th of March while still in bed Juanita and I decided to quickly go and visit Johan Jr in Windhoek Namibia for the weekend, we called him and he initially said that he is not around since he has to work on Saturday, flying freight to Walvis Bay on Saturday but phoned back a few minutes later and said that his boss has offered that we fly to Walvis with him and that we could then spend the weekend in the desert and return on Sunday evening! Half an hour later we were on our way to the airport.

Friday evening we had some of the best meat on offer in Namibia at Joe’s Beerhouse in Windhoek and early Saturday morning we were at Eros Airport for the flight to Walvis Bay in the Bay Air Cessna Caravan while Johan Jr. was going to follow us an hour later with a Cessna 210 with the Freight, but the famous desert fog on the coast had other ideas and we ended up taking off in two aircraft about two hours later, when it was reported that the fog was burning off.

Here Juanita is boarding the Caravan

The flight from Eros airport the city airport in Windhoek to Rooikop at Walvis Bay is an hour long and probably one with the most dramatic scenery in the world, starting out over the Khomas highlands and then the change to the Namib Desert ending up on the Atlantic ocean.

We had just touched down in Walvis when Johan Jr. taxied in to meet us on the apron and we quickly transferred our bags to the company Uno and was cruising up along the Long beach between Walvis and Swakopmundt. We just quickly popped in to see what the “Burning Shore” house looked like where Brad and Angelina Pit decided to have their baby.

Jr. booked us rooms at the Deutche Hause in Swakopmundt but before we checked in we went for lunch at the Tug Restaurant on the beach.

We had a fantastic light fish lunch almost suspended above the Atlantic Ocean and washed this down with a few Gin and Tonics. We then had an afternoon nap and later the evening we wandered out on the beach and ran into the crew of a beautiful old DC-6, that was having dinner on the Pier in front of the Strand Hotel. The Captain was Flippie Vermeulen and the first Officer was Tinus Dreyer and one of the Air Hostesses was the daughter of the owner of the DC-6, Chris Schutte. We chatted with them until midnight.

Juanita Johan Jr. and the famous Captain Vermeulen.

One of the stories Captain Vermeulen shared with us, was how, just two months ago he ran out of oil in another DC-4 in Chiredze (Buffalo Range) in the South of Zimbabwe, and had to spend a few hours there waiting for oil to be flown in from Polekwane in South Africa, and there he met Louis who popped in to pick up an injured patient and fly him to Harare.

On Sunday morning me and Jr had a game of squash after breakfast and after a light lunch at Café Anton and a quick drive around the desert to look for an old artist friend of ours that has lived about 10 Km from Swakopmundt we stopped briefly at the Martin Luther Tractor that has recently been restored,it was time to start returning to Windhoek. This time we went inland of the dunes from Swakop to Walvis and was flown back by Jr. and his colleague Riaan van Dyk.


All in all a great weekend - we returned home on Monday morning to resume work and will have fond momories of the beautiful scenery and pleasant people of Namibia.

Zimbabwe Namibia USA and Liberia

The last two months have been relatively quiet - Steven Spent several weeks in hospital in Cape Town but is back in Windhoek where we hope is recovery will be speedy - See Jr's email for more about Steven.

Juanita has been very quiet work wise but is at the moment on a trip via Kigali to London, San Francisco, Washington etc and she should be back later today.

My own travels took my back to Monrovia for a 18 day tour and that was also where I spent my birthday with a great crew, and we went to our old haunt, the Sushi Bar at the Royal Hotel. Since I got back I have been flying a relaxed schedule, locally for Imperial Air Cargo between Cape Town Port Elizabeth and Johannesburg. As I am writing this I just got back from Port Elizabeth and it is now 0300, I will be driving back to Lanseria in an hour to pick up Louis who has also been flying all night.

Since Louis have been working in Harare he has had a very exiting time and is enjoying the flying tremendously. Since the well known incidents of 11 March where several people were injured by the police at a prayer meeting in Harare and they were pretty much in the thick of things trying to help get the injured to South Africa and their efforts being thwarted by the ruling party. Eventually by order of the High Court in Zim some of the injured were eventually flown down to Lanseria Airport.

Louis has in the mean time moved into his own flat in Harare very close to the residence of President Mugabe (big advantage of the location of his flat is that there is never cuts in electricity or water) and is within walking distance of the Royal Harare Golf Club where he has joined as a member.

Two days ago Louis sent a text massage that he is on his way down here again but first has to go to Ndola in Zambia to pick up the patient. Later we received another message that the patient unfortunately died on the airport of Ndola so they went back to Harare.

Yesterday in the late afternoon while I was sitting reading a book (Commando by Deneys Reitz) on Summerstrand beach in PE , I got yet another call from Louis - this time from Victoria Falls where he was picking up an old couple that had fallen of an elephant - and as if that was not enough, he was called out again to go back to Bulawayo immediately to bring a second patient down to Lanseria, so here I am writing a bit on my blog between 3 and 4 in the morning killing a bit of time before setting of to go and pick up Louis who will be landing at five o'clock

The following email describes what Johan Jr is up to in Namibia

All is well here in Namibia just woke up at 1pm on a Saturday afternoon due to work that is. I have flown two nights this week thu and fri night and will fly again on Monday night. I am really starting to enjoy the aeroplane im flying I have about 230hrs on it now and getting very comfortable with the aircraft.

Happenings at work

As everyone knows a friend of mine Steven was in a plane crash and im glad to say that he is back in Namibia after major back surgery . He is still not well though he has now lost 20kgs a lot for a guy that weighed 80 that is allot. the other thing is he is very weak cant sit for a long time. He can feel his left leg but below the knee he has no movement control, at least he is positive and smiling and putting up a brave face. Looks like there will be some big court cases coming up.

The other thing is I have also started flying a few charters around Namibia with Bay Airs Cessna 310 nice to fly in the day a bit. I have flown mostly down the west coast between Walvis bay and luderitz. A very quiet and small town that can be likened to the moon I just stayed in the nest hotel a very comfy 4 star hotel on the water. The other thing about luderitz it is where they manufacture wind, to have a 40kmh wind is a standard day makes the flying fun and interesting low along the beach at 390kmh always fun especially to watch the cocky American business man try and take pictures of seals on the beach at that speed.

My plans for the weekend are to catch up sleep and watch some rugby and cricket maybe a round of golf when it cools down outside. Its school holidays soon and kirsty might come to nam to visit for a week or two which im looking forward to.

So that has been what the Kosmos Steyls have been up to recently sorry I have been quiet for the last few months, and thanks for everybody who enquired about my silence, but as soon as something exiting happens I will post it as soon as possible.

Aviation - Good, Bad and Ugly

The year 2007 has started with some good things and some really bad and ugly stuff, last week Jr phoned from Windhoek with alarming news that they have scratchy info about his friend Steven (who lived in the house with us during November when he and Johan did their training on the Beech 1900)

The initial news was that Steven has gone down in the desert near Luderitz and the as the time dragged on for the following hours more and more news came through from rescue people and hospitals etc. and all these were relayed to us via sms's from Johan Jr.

Aircraft found. wreck looks ok. did not burn or break up. - and later - Steven and all pax alive but hurt and on way to hospital in Luderitz. Then again a few hours later - not good Steven's back broken and in serious condition.

The next day Johan Jr and a team of medical staff flew to Luderitz in two aircraft and fetched all the pax and his friend and colleague Steven and brought them to Windhoek.

At this stage thing are not looking great. The forecast medical costs for Steven is around R700 000. and he is going to need some serious operations on his back. Crause Steyl owner of Air Ambulance has helped out and arranged for Steven to be flown to Cape Town where he arrived this morning and hopefully he will in time regain full health.
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So much for the bad and ugly side, we are thankful that we are all ok and Louis has done especially well this month by flying some 30 hours as "boy pilot" or autopilot on the Harare based Air Ambulance and he completed another part of his training yesterday and last night with his boss Captain Russell O'Gorman in the Jetstream. and he now is a qualified Co-Pilot.

With Steven out of the equation Jr has logged nearly 80 hours on the Beech 1900 this month and he is also looking at an offer from Bay Air to be the Safety Officer for the company.

Juanita is on her first flight of the year and left for Kigali yesterday and I just received an sms from her to say she is safely in Addis where she will be staying in a hotel where they were asked to bring their own sheets and towels - Africa is not for sissies!! Her passengers is attending the AU summit and most probably staying in the Addis Hilton regarded by most well travelled people as Africa's best hotel.

Slaves and Castles on Ghana's Goldcoast

The Photos in this post was all taken by Corne Steyn

At the end of our tours to Monrovia we always have a layover of a day and a half in Accra and during this last trip three of my colleagues, and myself, decided to hire a car and took a drive to have look at the slave castles that was built some 525 years ago by the Portuguese Spanish and Dutch Slave traders.

An example of how these Castles look today with myself in the slaves courtyard.

Below is one of our cabin attendants - Carmen Gilliomee - in the female dungeons under the governor's quarters in the Castle

Below is the final door trough which the slaves were taken to board the ships for Europe and America

This proved a fascinating bit of exploration and I was particularly impressed by the balanced portrayal of the history by the guide who showed us around. We were a group of 30 tourists of whom only 6 were white and the role of the black African traders were clearly spelled out and it was emphasised that both Black and White people profited from the slave trade.

Scattering through Africa 8 January

Yesterday the Steyls of Kosmos scattered all over Africa again.

1. I am already up in Monrovia, where I am flying between Monrovia and Accra.
2. Louis left from Johannesburg to Harare where he is starting a new venture with MARS.
3. The most dramatic event is that Johan Jr has flown our Cessna away forever to Namibia.

Above:- Here we were planning a flight some twelve years ago !

He flew a routing round the south of the Kalahari desert, from Kosmos via Kuruman to Upington where he refueled and cleared customs, then on to Keetmanshoop for Namibian Customs and fuel again then on to Eros airport in Windhoek. this took all and all, including all the stops some 10 hours?

It will be sold since it has served its time with us, both the boys did their training up to their commercial licenses on her. We owned the Cessna for almost 14 years and flew well over 1000 hrs to various memorable places around Southern Africa.

This old photo was taken in the door of ZS-CGE in 1994 with the boys aged 9 an 10

We'll remember the flight the boys made when they were in school and aged 16 and 17 to Cape Town and none of them could even drive a car and had to be fetched from Stellenbosch etc.

Then twice the whole family went all the way through Mozambique to the Bazaruto Island Archipelago where we stayed on Benguerra island for two fantastic holidays. Then there was the great flight across the Kalahari desert a few years ago to the Okavango Swamps in Botswana.

We will often miss the trusty little airplane!

Here she is parked in a hyena enclosure on the airstrip at Chitabe in the Swamps

Louis actually did his first flight on old years eve when he fetched a patient from Harare to Johannesburg, below is a Photo of the aircraft at Harare Airport.

West Africa & Harmattan wind

My current tour of duty in Monrovia has been pretty good so far, with the weekend of the 31st December 2006 spent at the Labadi Beach hotel in Accra. Once we Arrived in Monrovia everyone on the crew settled into a relaxed peaceful rithm of sleep music swimming and myself playing a game of squash every day at the local Liberian Squash club

which is situated in the middle of town at the back of a petrol filling Station and next to a very loud bar.

The Flying has been the normal United Nations schedule between Monrovia and Accra every Sunday and Thursday. The only difficult bit is the approach since the annual Harmattan wind wich is currently blowing from the Sahara Desert and reduces visibility to 400 meters. This is actually a very pleasant soft warm wind - more like a breeze and the temperature is around 30 degrees Celcius which is not bad for this area.

The photo above was taken yesterday morning at nine o' clock in the morning

and the sun looks almost like the moon on a foggy night.

In the shot below is some of the crew enjoying some sushi at a local bar.

Louis returns from Malawi - Johan & Kirsty Surprise us

Between Vacation in Plettenberg Bay and leaving for Monrovia for a duty tour until mid January, I had one day at home in Kosmos to attend to all the household and family arrangements.
Johan Jr had a few days off, and spent Christmas at the Dam, while Louis and Lerika Wessels who spent Christmas with him in Malawi - was supposed to return with the Beechcraft Baron he was flying up there to have it serviced here at Wonderboom Airport.

Louis was then changing jobs - he is starting on the 1st of January with MARS (Medical Air Rescue Services) in Harare Zimbabwe.


We planned to have a dinner at home in Kosmos with the Pettey Family, on my last night in South Africa, and hoped that all of our family and theirs could all be present, before we scatter all over the globe for 2007!

Here is a pic of the Beech Baron at Likoma Island halfway up the Malawi Lake, the aircraft got damaged when a passenger stepped on the flap and broke the flap, this meant that it had to be flown back to South - Africa with a field repaired flap.
Louis still had to fly some clients in another aircraft, a Piper Cherokee six, from a lodge in Zambia, the morning of the 28th of December to Lilongwe in Malawi, which meant that he would arrive home an hour or so after I left for Monrovia on Friday the 29th.

A sad state of affairs since Louis had been away nearly six months!

However things changed for the better that day, Louis and Lerika took off again in the Baron as soon as he landed in Lilongwe and set course for Beira in Mozambique and then on to Polokwane to clear customs into South Africa, the weather was not great but ok for an instrument flight with some isolated thunderstorms in the Nylstroom - Now called Modimolle - area.

He called on his cellphone about 120 Km from Polekwane and gave us an estimated arrival time of 2000 at Wonderboom. This meant that the whole family would have dinner and a few hours together before I had to leave again.

Dinner was postponed to accommodate Louis and Ken and myself drove to Wonderboom Airport to pick Louis up



Here Louis arrives at home and is welcomed by Kirsty and Johan Jr.




Louis was very surprised that his older brother whom he had not seen in six months did not come to meet him at the airport but that became clearer later in the evening.

The two (below) had a serious matter to discuss and needed some time alone!

They had a few glasses of wine and it was raining on an off with no wind and pleasantly warm, Kirsty made some sushi earlier and we brought a few pounds of fantastic smoked cape salmon from Robberg Fisheries in Plett.

After the excitement of welcoming Louis home they (Johan Jr. and Kirsty) disappeared into the garden while we were getting ready to start the meal.

After a few minutes Kirsty walked into the lounge and made the announcement. That they are now engaged - and on her finger she had proof of this.

The ring

Ryan, Kirsty's brother, was the most surprised and after all the congratulations and good wishes it was time for some pictures of the new enlarged family, Juanita and me are both very happy to be associated with the well respected Pettey family and we all share several friends in the area.















Here we all are Louis, Juanita, Kirsty and Jenny standing behind me Johan Jr. Ryan and Ken.

Crocodile in Pool

During our holiday in Plett we received an e-mail from Johan Jr's gilfriend's father, Ken Pettey the Vet in Hartebeespoort - herewith the email with one of the pics of the croc they found in their pool!!

Hi Johan and Juanita,

We spent a week in Cape Town and arrived home at 8.30pm 2 nights ago. I could see that the pool was green as a result of our absence and the recent thunderstorms. I threw the hose into the pool and switched the water on. In the poor light, I thought that I saw a large fish swim away from where the hose had landed. I may have had a swim if there wasn't lightning and thunder. I did put my arms into the water to clean out the leaf trap attached to the suction apparatus. Kirsty heard me working at the pool and asked me what I was doing. I told her that I thought that I had seen a fish as big as a shark. She laughed at me and I actually convinced myself that my brain was playing tricks (ageing). Sarah, our domestic arrived the next morning and told Jenny that she was afraid to go into the garden as the previous day, she and the gardener had encountered something in the garden with a very long tail and 4 legs that walked on it's belly with it's head in the air. When Jenny told me, I said it must be a leguaan that I had seen in the pool. Our bedroom overlooks the pool and when we opened the curtains we got the suprise of our lives...Take a look at the attached photos for a description better than I can give. I phoned the Hartbeespoort Snake and Animal Park for assistance and the receptionist just laughed, and told me that it was December not April! I wanted to speak to Jason Seale (the owner) and she said that he was too busy for jokes. When she heard that I was the vet, things changed and it took Jason and his team 5 minutes to get to our pool. There are NO crocodiles in Hartbeespoort Dam so they also stood and watched the animal in our pool in disbelief.... maybe in disbelief that a pool could get so green!! (I am embarrassed - the Beeld published a picture so the broader community now knows how I maintain our pool!!)

I took video and Ryan took the photos of Jason impersonating Steve Irwin. It was all over quickly... the jaws of the croc were taped up and it was put into a sack and taken to a place of safety at the Park.

Lots of love and regards... have a merry Christmas and a peaceful, happy and successful new year!

Ken (on behalf of Jen, Ryan & Anneke and Johan & Kirsty)

Xmas in Plettenberg Bay

After the trip down to Bloemfontein we packed our golfclubs and the rest of our holiday gear and set off for O.R.Tambo airport where we Jumped on KULULA airlines for a flight to George on Sunday the 17th of December. We arrived in Plett just in time to join our friends Vere & Tiki for yet another great birthday party on the decks of the Emily Moon restaurant in the polofields.

In the picture above is our hosts Vere and Tiki - with Tiki's Parents Leon and Andre in the foreground and below is Vere and two very important women in his life , wife Tiki and daughter Tami

Most of the holiday at the Van Heerdens are spent on the deck in front of their house with beautiful views of Robberg to the right and Natures valley on the left

Above is a picture of the deck with the table set for Christmas Lunch and in the distance is Keurbooms and Natures valley
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Below is the view of Robberg to the Right or South West

Here I am relaxing with a glass of wine and some good company, Henk van Zyl and Dries Lategan Joined us for a fish braai (Yellowtail) on the deck, Dries and myself had a great golf game the next day at the Plettenberg Bay Country club , and afew days Later at a braai at Dries' holiday cottage in Natures Valley, Henk organized us a game at te fabulous Outinqua course at Fancourt in George. Below is Henk, Dries and Vere.

At Fancourt Tiki Tami, Juanita and myself had an unbelievable great day of golf ,
below is Tiki playing a short hole.

and here Juanita is surveying a longer hole, in the parklike surroundings

We had a great 10 days of total relaxation and rest , with the best weather you could wish for and the day after Boxing day we flew back to Kosmos where I had one day to get packed and ready for my next tour of duty to West - Africa in Monrovia. I had no Idea what a day was in store for me!