The finale of our weekend was the best part. We got to ride on quad bikes!

I love game drives that bring us deep into the wilderness and let us chill with wild animals, but to see them on a bike, up close? Way cooler!

This was as far as I went being alone on the quad bike. Haha.. we decided that I should ride pillion so that I don’t create a fatal disaster can take pictures while riding on the quad bike.

I loved riding pillion. The hubby and I have never done this before and it was romantic as hell. I must have taken a thousand pictures of us looking like this.

Leaning on the hubby’s back, with my arms wrapped around his waist, feeling the breeze in my hair. Mmmm.. it was a scene off a romance novel alright.

Except that in real life, it was bumpy, dusty and painfully hot. Yeap, the African sun is definitely a force to be reckoned with.

Our guide was Steven, who was also the manager of Mountainview Ranch. He was extremely patient with us because we were a couple of wild kids on his block. And he led the way through most of our ride that morning. It was lovely, taking in the morning air and waking up with the animals.

On several occasions, Steven would signal for us to go in front of him. Whenever he sensed there were animals ahead, he let us go in front so that we could see them before they got freaked out by our presence and scuttled off.

This way, we saw a large herd of elands tramp purposefully through the plain as we approached. It was an incredible experience because we’ve never seen an eland before, until now.

And we had the opportunity to have a close up face-off with some giraffes when we interrupted their breakfast time.

We also pissed off a herd of female waterbucks who were probably having a leisurely morning huddle, before we barged in with our loud engines and excited voices.

As waterbucks do, they ran for their lives.

Except for one fierce, stubborn broad. She stood very still while the rest zoomed past her and never once moved her eyes from us. Even when we inched forward, she never budged. This was very rare for waterbucks.

Steven pointed out to us that the reason she didn’t move was because she had babies in the bush. A mother never leaves her young. Aaawwww…

After a couple of hours on the quad bikes, we were clearly high on adrenaline. Well, at least I was. When we spotted wildebeests and zebras, we zoomed ahead of Steven and forgot to ask his permission to move ahead and went charging.

I wish I had recorded this on video. Because I sounded like a lunatic going, Chase them! Chase them! Chase them! And my laugh was freaking evil. Heh heh.

The wildebeests and zebras ran for their lives. Those poor big fellows.

I don’t know which was more frightening for them. The bike or me. Hahaha!

If you ever visit a reserve with a quad bike tour, go on it. Not every reserve has it because it wouldn’t be so funny if we had stumbled into a pride of lions or a herd of elephants. But if you’re at a reserve that has no or few predators, it is an amazing experience to be in the wild like this.

Big thanks to our guide, Steven. Who showed us a fabulous time in Limpopo over the weekend. We couldn’t have asked for a better way to end our anniversary celebration.

I know I know, we’ve been celebrating for an entire month. I need to stop singing that anniversary tune. =)
 

I’m a sucker for game drives. Both our little gal and me love them, but the hubby isn’t so big on driving into the wilderness looking for animals.

I can do this 3 times a day (morning, evening and night drives) every single day of our trip. And not feel bored. The hubby likes the fresh air but old men cannot sit for long in a vehicle. They always claim their butts hurt. Heh heh.

We were the only ones who were hungry for game drives last weekend, so we had the land rover to ourselves every day. Yippee! The hubby and I could each take a row, which meant that I could slide to the right and left of the vehicle easily to watch animals or take pictures. That’s the way I like it.

You don’t want to have another one of two persons obstructing your view when you have a situation where a family of 11 giraffes decides to show their faces.

Or when a herd of zebras finally decides to give you a full frontal instead of giving you their asses. I don’t know why zebras always take one look at us and then flash us their butts.

The folks at Mountainview Ranch told us upfront that they didn’t have the Big 5 (buffalo, lion, leopard, elephant, rhino) on their land, except for 3 leopards. I’ve always thought the leopard was a myth. They say it’s an elusive nocturnal animal. But I think everyone’s bluffing. We know people who have lived here for 20 years and have never spotted a leopard. I’m beginning to suspect they have rollers that make leopard foot prints and they roll them all over the reserve every day. Coz that’s what we saw all the time – leopard foot prints.

The smaller animals at the farm were pretty amazing. Due to the lack of predators in the reserve, they’ve had a good chance to multiply and when we spotted them, they were rarely alone or in small groups.

The reserve also had very unique species of white blesboks, elands and black impalas. Those were fascinating to spot, although not easy to catch on photograph.

The Mountainview Ranch gave us the rare opportunity to go to their neighbouring property, which was a breeding farm and we saw the most amazing golden wildebeests. We all know that wildebeests are black, but a golden one? That was certainly a first. Each golden wildebeest costs about R1million (~SGD160,000) to buy.

A large herd of bulls were also being bred and we saw probably the cutest bull we’ve ever seen since we arrived in South Africa. This big guy had horns so curved in that they were probably useless now.

It’s always nice to drive around in the bush because of the amazing landscape. I never get tired of seeing the land in its full glory. No buildings. No roads. Just a dirt track, animals and us.

And when the sun sets, that blazing ball of fire will rock your soul.

Next up – we chased wildebeests and zebras. Not kidding.
 

It was my turn to organise a getaway and I decided to pick a cheap one. I thought I was going to foot the bill for this one and this housewife is soooo stingy these days. Hahaha..

So I went online and randomly searched for cheap affordable lodges within a few hours from Johannesburg, and I stumbled upon Mountainview Private Game Ranch. Its website hinted that it was a ranch-like lodge, just 3 hours from Joburg and the prices were very good. I booked it without even checking where it really was.

We had absolutely no expectations. There was no internet connection, so we brought wine and books and were prepared to chill for 3 days. Boy, did we have a nice surprise when we arrived and discovered the place had a view like this -

This was one weekend where the hubby and I could not stop saying how blessed we were. Even for a casual getaway like this, we had lucked out. Mountainview Ranch was nestled on the slopes of the Waterberg Mountains in Limpopo and the landscape was beyond stunning.

The ranch folks knew we were celebrating our anniversary and gave us their nicest lodge – the Lion Room.

It was a gorgeous little chalet. The lounge room had plush leather sofas that we sank into as soon as we arrived. And there was a full view of the mountains and flat plain in front of us.

From the lounge room, we had an unobstructed view of the stretch of highlands and there was a welcoming water hole where we would watch the animals come quench their thirst.

Right outside our chalet was our own private pool. It couldn’t get anymore indulgent than this.

Except that life’s best indulgences are always the work of nature. Our chalet faced north, so we could see the most gorgeous African sunrises every day on our right and the mind-blowing sunsets in the evenings on our left.

The hubby admired the sunrise with his morning coffee

Mountainview was the perfect place for a long weekend getaway like this. We read alot, rested, took naps and did lots of exciting things on the ranch grounds. More on that later..

Meals were hearty, delicious and very home-style. It was like what Mom would have put on the table. Eggs, bacon, sausages and toast for breakfast. No fancy muesli-yogurt, cream cheese bagels stuff. And dinner was steak and potatoes, or roast chicken in dark gravy with one of the best scalloped potatoes we’ve ever had and a bunch of veggies. We ate like pigs even though we had sworn we were not going to be gluttony (again) that weekend.

And just when I thought it was okay to eat that mountain of bacon on my plate since we did not pre-book any lunch with the ranch, they surprised us by bringing us food in the afternoon to our chalet. Oh my gosh, burgers made with FRIED buns. Any chance of getting our love handles back in their right position this weekend was shot to hell right away.

Mountainview wasn’t just about chilling and doing nothing. On the contrary, we did heaps and saw some amazing wild life. We also had a morning of exhilarating adventure before we returned home.

It was a really really good weekend. And the best part was – it was totally unexpected.

More on our weekend coming up..
 

Mountainview Private Game Reserve is located in the Waterberg Mountains in Limpopo and is 3 hours drive from Johannesburg. Tariffs start from R175 (~SGD28) per person per night for chalets. Meals, game drives and activities are separately charged.

About a month ago, I had shared about a great experience I had in Hillbrow at a centre called Twilight Children.

We did a Help Portrait-like exercise with them then, and 3 weeks later, we returned to give back the pictures.

For me, this is my favourite part of the Help Portrait movement. The giving back. Nothing seals the bond faster between the recipients and us than when they realise that we actually kept our promise. And we had come back.

It never fails to warm my heart to see the kids hover over their own photos. The small smiles. The shy expressions. And the quiet pride in their eyes at their own images.

It is impossible to describe how gratifying we feel as the volunteers who have done this. I swear it beats selling a digital picture for big bucks for me.

I can’t stop harping about how great a movement Help Portrait is. How much hope, dignity and respect a single picture gives to an individual. Some of the recipients have never had a proper photo of themselves in their lives.

The older boys beamed with pride at the handsome faces in the photos.

Some boys said they were going to give their picture to their mother. Awww.. I can’t imagine a mother never ever having had a picture of her child or with her child.

This was a bunch of really great kids. We let a couple of them hold our cameras and they went wild. It was endearing to see them feel so proud of the opportunity to shoot with a DSLR and the way they held on so tightly and carefully with the gadgets.

This was the shot one of the boys took with our camera. We love it!

There’s a bunch of us who love doing the Help Portrait. And we are targeting to shoot portraits for 1,700 kids in Diepsloot in the next few months. We need to spend R5 (~SGD0.90) to print and mount each picture. And in the longer run, the way we have been managing the cost (i.e. on our own) is not sustainable. Especially since we are targeting to give out 25,000 portraits this year for the actual Help Portrait exercise.

I hate asking for cash contributions because I know it’s always harder for people to give cash than to give old clothes or blankets. But this is a really important mission. We need to raise funds so that we can keep doing what we do.

So, here I am.. asking for everyone to pause for a moment and consider contributing SGD5.00 or more. SGD5.00 will help us give up to 5 kids a photo of themselves. It is a huge deal.

SGD5.00 is half a movie ticket or a lunch meal to us. But it would give to many less privileged people out there a picture of themselves or of their family that they will cherish for life.

Please contribute SGD5.00 or more via local Singapore bank transfer. Kindly email me at bing@storyofbing.com to inform me when you have made a contribution. All contributors will be kept updated on the usage of funds.

[Update - The only mode of contribution I can offer on a public platform at the moment is Singapore bank transfer. If you wish to contribute via other channels, please contact me at bing@storyofbing.com. Sorry for the inconvenience caused.]

THANK YOU THANK YOU THANK YOU THANK YOU THANK YOU!

What is Help Portrait?

Watch this video. It says everything about what it is.

Help Portrait will be held on 8 December 2012 across the world.

In South Africa, you can register as a volunteer right away at Ubuntu Help Portrait.

All my blog posts on my involvement in Help Portrait are archived here.