"Most Popular Accommodation in Malalane, 2011" award

Dear Phumula Kruger Lodge and Safaris

Congratulations! Phumula Kruger Lodge and Safaris has been awarded TravelGround's "Most Popular Accommodation in Malalane, 2011" award.

2011 was TravelGround.com's second full year of operation. During 2011 we had over 5.7 million page views, up from 2.5 million page views in 2010. This, combined with thousands of enquiries and bookings, has given us a fantastic amount of data about the popularity and appeal of each accommodation on TravelGround.com. Using this data, we have given awards to our top accommodations in each of 90 regions.

Thanks for being a part of our exciting growth and giving your guests a great experience!

Kind Regards,
The TravelGround Team
0860 022 104

Shelley Swart

Establishment Liaison

Direct: 021 200 7586 | Company: 0860 022 104

www.travelground.com | @travelground | facebook.com/travelground

New safari price list

New years party at Phumula come join us!

Summer VISITORS

Now that we have entered the prelude to summer with the late spring rain, we also have the pleasure of welcoming various summer visitors, like the cuckoos, the European roller, the bushveld kingfisher and other bird species who do not stay over in winter but take wing to warmer climates.

The interesting thing about these bird species is that somehow they know when to leave the region wherever they stay in winter and trek southwards.  I want to single out a few of these bird species as they have peculiar attributes, like, for instance the redchested cuckoo, the Afrikaans name is the Piet-my-vrou, from a rendering of the calls they make.  We can hear them calling endlessly, not only in daytime, but also during the night, but they are not easy to see, as they hide in the top branches of high trees for long periods during which they call.  They come from regions in central Africa and normally arrive in our region in October and leave again in April, but this year they only arrived in November.  The reason for this delay is that we have not had sufficient rain in October and these birds live mainly on caterpillars which only appear when the humidity is high, which means that the cuckoos sit somewhere in the Congo but in some way they know exactly when we will be having the first decent spring rain and they frequently appear about a day or three before the rain!  We are not quite sure how they know exactly when to come, because I do not believe that they watch the weather reports on TV!

They are extremely bad parents, the female lays one egg per nest in the nest of other local breeding birds like various robins, thrushes and chats and leaves the upbringing of their children to the poor birds in whose nest the egg is laid, and not only that, but their chicks throw out the host bird's eggs or chicks within four days after hatching!  Some of the other cuckoo species do not throw out the host's chicks, they just trample them to death and some of them even demand to be fed for a few weeks after they are big enough to leave the nest and fend for themselves!

Good by for now!

Oupa

CHANGED TEACHERS?

The wise king of Israel, Solomon, is credited with saying: "Lazy people should learn a lesson from the way ants live" (Proverbs 6:6, Good News Bible).  The other day I came to the conclusion that things have changed since Solomon's time and that the animals and birds are "aping" the ways of the humans (if the apes will excuse me using this way of stating different behaviour of non-humans).

Around first light, just about every morning, my friend, the duiker ram, appears and expects to be given his daily ration of papino and he usually stands around until I get around to giving him his ration and most mornings I take a quantity of chicken feed out at the same time for the spur fowls (previously called francolins!) of which we have a family of five, Pop, Mom, and three half grown youngsters.  Two mornings ago, I did not take out the chicken feed at the same time as I put out the papino and I had hardly closed the door behind me when the five spur fowl started kicking up a noise and toi-toing around the duiker who was enjoying his breakfast.

The only conclusion I could come to was that the spur fowls had learnt that some humans tend to congregate and wave placards and shouting "we demand ….. ", and in general making a nuisance of themselves in order to get what they think they are entitled to, and just like the humans, the noise and dancing and shouting tend to minimize as soon as they get what they demanded!

As the Romans used to say:  O, tempora! O, mores!

Oupa.

THE BOSS

Surely we all know a person to whom this is 100% applicable:

1. The Boss is ALWAYS right.
2. The Boss does not SLEEP, he RELAXES.
3. The Boss does not READ the paper, he STUDIES it.
4. The Boss does not HESITATE, he REFLECTS.
5. The Boss is not LATE, he has been DELAYED.
6. The Boss is not WRONG, he is MISUNDERSTOOD.
7. The Boss does not GO OUT, he is ABSENT.
8. The Boss does not COMPLICATE, he ORGANIZES.
9. Enter the office of the Boss with YOUR IDEA and leave with HIS IDEA.
10. In case of doubts, rule No. 1 applies.

Oupa

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