Saturday

It's a muggy Saturday afternoon, I'm wearing shorts and slip slops, even so I'm hot and perspiring. I'm on my way to Nelspruit, 93km away, to have lunch with a friend at a restaurant overlooking the botanical gardens. The bushveld is lush after all the rain. It's a beautiful afternoon.

Jock 'n Java.. yeah i kno!

This afternoon at the botanical garden the smell of thatch and wood varnish did my head in. In a good way. It took me back, at least, to the seven months I spent in Olifants camp of Kruger yonks ago. Twisted and turned me.

Now the smell of someone's deoderant here at Nelspruit's Jock 'n Java is takin me back to a place I can't quite put my finger one. The danger of scent.........

Tonight I'm staying at Louis's before heading back home early tomorow morning. A night in the Lowveld.

Nelspruit Botanical Gardens

Right in front of me is the awe-inspiring confluence of the Crocodile river (on the left, flowing all the way from Dullstroom where it rises, through the Kwena Dam - between Waterval Boven and Mashishing, old Lydenburg) and the Nels River, straight ahead, originating near Sabie and named over 100 years ago after the three Nels brothers. The Crocodile river then flows along the southern border of the Kruger National Park, through Mozambique and into the Indian Ocean.

I'm all alone here this afternoon, mine's the only car in the parking lot... I needed to come here to be restored and centred. This botanical garden is magnificent, the grass cool and soothing beneath my feet despite the perspiration on my forehead and my clammy chest and armpits.