South Africa: The Lion Park & Afternoon Drinks (03Nov12)

Today I woke up in a very peaceful, happy state with the sun shining. Emilene has kindly given up her bed for me so I had a really good night’s sleep. Waking up, I could hear a tiny amount of traffic and Kate moving around quietly in the kitchen which was a comforting feeling. Emilene made us some coffee and we had rusks (South African style biscuits) for breakfast while we made a fuss of the rabbits and I had a bath for the first time in over six weeks. Kate then made us some fruit salad which was really yummy, but naughty because she put ice cream with it and it was only eleven o'clock in the morning.

We left the flat and headed for The Lion Park. The morning sunshine showed off the purple of the jacaranda trees and we took a detour around Johannesburg and past the Investec office in Sandton. The building is huge and looks really impressive. In fairness all the corporate and residential buildings around Sandton looked pretty amazing.

The Lion Park was a big disappointment. The enclosures were far too small and by the time we had finished it felt like a pure money making scheme. The “Cub World Experience” where you were supposed to be able to play and hold the cubs turned out to be a two minute photo shot as we had no time to play with the cubs. We were also told that all eleven cubs had been rejected by their mothers. Something both Emilene and I struggled to believe. Anyway, we have some good photo's.

After The Lion Park we headed to Moyo, a bar/restaurant set in Zoo Lake. It was a lovely themed place, very relaxing and had sofa’s and tables dotted around. While we waited for Vina and Bongiwe to meet us we had our faces painted with flowers by a lady called Faith. I have only met Vina once when she came over the Investec London office. Bongiwe has left Investec now but she is such a bubbly person, just like I remember. It was so lovely to see them both. After a bit of food, a couple of drinks and lots of girlie talk we headed home. On the way home I turned back to look out of the car window. The Johannesburg skyline was so impressive all lit up in the night.