Since Drakensberg boys’ choir, yesterday morning started with breakfast, a fruit salad and an omelette. My mom and I sat watching the kids, perhaps 4 for 5 of them catching Black Bass in the dam. They were in kayaks thoroughly enjoying themselves while Egyptian geese mucked about around them.

In our daily musings, we got around to setting up a trap for the poor Ibis – he or she shall know its fate sometimes this afternoon perhaps. The idea is to produce a swat-team response unit to the fallen cage door. One will hold, the other will snip the fishing line off from around its leg and well the other…will stand to attention I’m sure.  

I’m sitting alongside my mother who is knitting and I’ve just had a shower. Its load shedding so everyone is out of energy. A few campers have passed our campsite and presumably, because there is no much to do, have decided to go for casual strolls to see the early morning sights. It's about 7:45 and it's most likely going to become more active as the children wake up. Its school holidays now and with the added benefit that yesterday was a bank holiday, families flooded into the campsite yesterday.

We had a few microlights fly into the airfield, presumably catering for the tourists. It reminded me how amazing flight in general and as a concept and mechanical realisation really is.

Again, I was treated to a home-made mother’s meal in the form of a chicken and chickpea omelette and prior to that a tuna salad and prior to that a chicken fillet dish. I must say the eating hasn’t been bad, camping and all!

My mother and I spend a large portion of the day nursing my father who’s just caught my cold and was taking a day off. We spend the evening discussing the depth of important conversations which always helps to reaffirm the special mother-son bond which persists.

Much of life I think is about coming to terms with everything else in life and discussing these eventualities, thoughts and departing experience are good for the psyche – both mine and my mother’s. One thing that we talked about is how regret is a terrible wound of the soul and all should be done to pry loose any regret we as humans hold onto in a bid to liberate ourselves from its restraints.

Since A Scenic African run with sensible shoes, yesterday we went to watch and listen to the Drakensberg Boys’ choir affectionately named the ‘Drakies’ pronounced ‘draakies’. It was a memorable experience. As an isolated and very acclaimed boys’ choir located far into the Drakensberg mountains, they have the most scenic views from their grounds. My mother loved the performance and this experience, to have shared it with her was a particular highlight.

I also went for a run which took me down similar paths as the previous day. However, I decided to continue running up a winding mountain trail which climbed and climbed and climbed forever. It reached 1,300 meters up and my legs were burning. I stopped when I disturbed a monkey/baboon group and thought I’d better leave them as-is and decided to begin my descent.  I ran past 4 Zebras as I descended.

My father and I also had lunch, He had a Greek salad and I had fish, and I after my run, my mother prepared a lovely meal on the braai. This was particularly useful because it included sweet potato, chicken fillets and vegetables – a perfectly balanced meal (especially after my 8.7km run around). Before enjoyed that meal, I took myself off the swimming pool and had a brief swim as I’d accumulated quite a sweat from the run.

We’re also in the process of fashioning a makeshift braai-trap to capture a lone haadidaa(Ibis) whos, unfortunately, got some fishing line around its leg. It's limping uncomfortably and we’d like to catch it, remove the line and set it free as soon as possible to minimise stress etc. We might catch him/her today.

My father, unfortunately, has caught my cold, and I heard him coughing through the night. Hopefully its no worse than my cold as it passed within a week. Still, I feel rather guilty having passed it to him. We did take precautions to prevent transmission but it didn’t work. 

I’m not sure if we’ll be able to fix the carburettor intake tube today in light of this. We have another week or so left of my visit so there is a good chance It’ll get done.

Since African party birds, I finally made it out on a run yesterday. I’d started feeling better and decided to do an introductory run since being ill – something easy and not too Pacey. I ran around the park, then towards the airfield and around it. I continued further up to mount champagne and did a loop before returning back the way I came.

At a fork in the road which divided the route to mount champagne, I decided to investigate the alternative route. That took me for about 1km on an unknown winding road which I eventually gave up on and returned the way I came. I then decided to go for another detour and ran up the steep incline from the entrance to the park, past the Drakensberg boys’ choir and all the way up the main road.

It was during this steep ascent that I noticed the Catkin mountains watching me as I endured to the top of the path. At this time, peering to my side and up, time seemed to stand still while I watch those mountains and they watched me.

After a while, I realised my route and again continued to push up the hill. By the time I’d reached the summit of my own personal mountain, the hill I was climbing, I felt that my introductory run was nearing its end. I was tired.  Having reversed my route once more, I circled the pool on the way back and ultimately jumped it to cool off. I ran 8km and averaged 5:00/km.

The previous day I made my way down the restaurant and had a grilled Hake and salad along with a stir-fried vegetable dish mixed with chicken strips. I also re-connected with the outside world to see what it was doing: I checked my email and various other communication methods.  Today we will be going to see the Drakensberg boys’ choir sing. This will be one for the memory banks…

I finally finished my last paper and wrote up about it in my tent late yesterday night. I put my headlamp on, pulled my laptop out and focused on it. The next morning, I thought I’d spend a little time touching it up before submitting it. This included confirming the criteria for critically evaluating the paper I had analysed. I submitted it and my mind and the world went quite once more. I have exams in 4 weeks.

My dad and I continue to go down to have a shower at the time every day, a ritual that persists which I find comforting. In the morning he makes us both a bowl of porridge and we sit talking in our camping chairs while consuming it. I few campers have left as the weekend ended, others joined and the dynamic seems to ebb and flow. New casual acquaintances are made from time to time as people pass every so often.

I’m sitting in my tent now watching the monkeys as they try to penetrate the dustbin and my parents’ tent – both of which are tightly secured to prevent their curiosity from paying off.

Yesterday my dad and I discovered by the truck was overheating. There is a tiny hole in the air intake pipe from the carburettor. I put on a vest my mother had put aside for me and along with my running shorts and short pants looked like a regular redneck. We noticed a lead just before we were to take the truck 30 mins up the road to Winterton, to get some more food and supplies. However, before we could do that, we needed to understand the problem with the leak.

We set up a tarpaulin under the front of the truck and after a series of discussions understood what the problem was. This entailed untightening in the fastening mechanism that was holding the rubber pipe that took the water/anti-freeze from the carburettor to the engine and trying to move it over the tiny hole. This was a stop-gap measure and after a quick stop part way in our journey, we rechecked it. It had held but it was slowly leaking. We decided that this was an acceptable risk and carried on to Winterton. We drove into a car mechanic, asked his opinion and he advised sealing the hole in the metal. We got some sealant and extra fastener.

We also did some shopping at the local Spar and did a quick stop for biltong at a service station. I eat it all on the way home, while my dad drank his drink.

In the shop, I was amazed at how our existence in the scenery reminded me of Far Cry 3. There is no doubt that we are in a ‘developing’, 3^rd world country, quite run down and very much in the middle of somewhere that perhaps the world didn’t care about. The other interesting thing was the sheer volume of sweets available at the shop, almost like a factory of sugar-based treats. Later that day my mind was again indulged with a fact read out by my dad from his cell phone stating that South Africa had just become the unhealthiest country on the planet! From the sights seen during checkout that day at the shop, it was clear that sugar was a leading culprit in this regard. Nutrition is a problem.

While out, my dad said he was quickly going to pop into an alternative shop to buy eggs and I decided to browse the John Deere shop. I was ready to buy a cap and then realised I really didn’t need one and that its usually the prospect of owning something that isn’t useful all the time is worse than owning it to begin with, so I decided better of it and left the store empty-handed.

I can now hear guinea fowl calling on either side of me. I’m definitely in Africa. I think I’ll never see this land the way I did while growing up, it’s no longer the arduous endurance marathon it once was but now more a temperate scenic trail-run with sensible shoes.