Chapter 43: Paradise Found

I basked in the reaction from Daise, Alina, Rebecca and the rest as they saw what we call "The Farm" for the first time. I turned off the engine, and climbed out, encouraging them all to do the same. We ended up in a line on the road in front of the Land Rover, staring down into the valley.

The land dropped away in front of us in a wide valley. Just off the road to the right, about five hundred meters from the hill where we we standing, the lodge and guest-houses were nestled into the bush. They had a magnificent view down the valley, and overlooked a small lake.

"What are those ... those ... animals in the lake?" Daise asked me, clutching my arm tightly.

"Hippos ... Hippopotamus," I answered her with a smile.

Alina was most taken with the sight of a troop of Giraffe grazing from the Acacia trees on the left of the road. They were no more than fifty meters from us, and completely unfazed by the fact that we were there.

Once everyone had their fill, we climbed back into the Land Rover and drove down to the Lodge.

I stopped outside the reception and everyone followed me into the lobby. The sandstone coloured walls stretched up for two stories to the exposed wooden beams under the thatch roof. There were large photo-prints some of the scenes of wildlife arranged on the walls. We were very proud of the fact that we had four of the 'Big Five' on the reserve, missing only Lions.

I spoke to the woman manning the recpetion desk, and told her what I would prefer, then took everyone to show them the board that displayed a stylised map of the resort and surrounding area.

"This is where we are now," I explained as I pointed it out on the map. "You can see the boundaries of the estate marked with a red line. This part of the boundary, marked in green, is where we border the Ihala Game Reserve. At certain times of the year we will drop the game fence to allow the animals to cross freely between the two reserves."

"Why would you want to do that?" Daise asked.

"For a number of reasons, a lot of them having to do with the management of the game. The most important reason is the use of water. We have some good water here and better access to the river, So in the dry season, the Ithala animals are allowed to come across. The other reason is breeding, we like to allow the various animals the chance at a broader selection of mates."

"That makes sense," Alina responded. I was quite surprised by just how intensely foucused her and Daise had been during my explanation. I had the impression that the two of them were sponges feeling the first spring rains after the drought.

On reflection, I decided that they were probably so committed to adapting that they wanted to absorb everything that they could. If that was the case then I was happy. That sort of commitment to their new lives meant that my emotional energy and financial resources weren't being wasted.

Just then the reception lady called me over and we started dishing out keys to rooms and instructions about how to get there.

It was fortunate that it was a quiet time of the year, so we had a very low occupancy and there was plenty of space to house everyone in luxury. Of course, it the resort had been full, then we could have put everyone up in what we called the "Backpackers Lodge". That was essentially a barracks in design; a long room with double-bunks spaced evenly against both sides.