Summer Cuts

It seems there is no word for spring in isiZulu. We have just emerged from a chilly winter to find summer waiting. With summer come the summer hair cuts. Chad and I decided to shed some of our winter coats last weekend at Katie's place. The close cuts will also afford us a better aerodynamic coefficient in anticipation for our persistence hunt.

Follow by Email!

Are you tired of checking my blog and NOT finding any updates? Do you wish there was a way for my blog to TELL you when I blog? Well today is your lucky day as it seems there is a new feature available: Follow by Email. If you enter your email in the box to the right, my blog will ostensibly notify you every time I post a new entry. If you try it and it works, leave a comment so I know! Of course in order for it to work I actually need to blog so I will try to keep up on my end.

Chicken, it's what's for dinner

Less than $10!

MILKY WAY!

As you may have guessed, I live in an area with very little light pollution. I have been taking advantage of this to practice some astro photography. Here is the resultant image of 7 or 8 exposures stitched together. I can GUARANTEE there will be more like this to come!

Drakensbergs in July

It was the fourth of July weekend here and I was lucky enough to be accompanied by Brielle for a 3 day hike into Lesotho! Whereas over the Christmas break I hiked to the Sani Pass via Giant's Castle, this time we decided to approach the Sani Pass from the south. We began inside the Cobham nature reserve, right outside of Underberg. From there we made it half-way up the escarpment to the Gxalingenwa cave. The weather was perfect and the cave quite cozy. The next day we made the push up the escarpment between Hodgson's Peaks. The last 1500 meters was by far the toughest as we gained 600+ meters of elevation! Nothing we couldn't handle though, we made it to the top with just minutes to spare and found a nice spot to set up camp. Soon after the sun set we were greeted by a devilish wind and what from the inside of the tent sounded like rain. It was bitterly cold and the "rain" did not stop once. At first light there appeared to be something accumulating underneath the fly of our tent. It was ice. The rain was actually snow. There was a good six inches on the ground before we even got moving. Luckily our final destination was only several miles away. We packed up and made it over the next pass in a veritable whiteout, eventually making it down to the Sani Pass Chalet. I never thought I would be snowed in on the Fourth of July, especially not while I was in Africa.

*click on picture to see gallery

Wildlife

Since I have been in South Africa I have been lucky enough to spend time in a number of game preserves. Here are some pictures I snapped in my time here. So far I have been to the Pilanesberg National Park, Hluhluwe-Imfolozi Park (twice), St Lucia Protected wetlands, as well as the Nambiti Private Game Preserve. Kruger is next. . .
*click on picture to see gallery

35mm Fun

When my mom and sister visited they were kind enough to bring my Pentax K1000 along with them. Over the course of their visit I snapped some pictures and only recently had them developed. Enjoy!

*click on picture to see gallery