Had yet another awesome cool dream...

The start of the dream was a bit of a blur but it had a lot of nice suits is all I really remember of the start.  The next part of the dream was a bit like time lapse because we (a lovely lady friend and I) took a flight from Perth further west and landed in South Africa.  It was a warm sunny day and we travelled to the hotel and got this gorgeous room overlooking the ocean.

Having arrived mid afternoon and still a little jetlagged we settled into the room and took a sleep and woke up later that evening and went down for a delicious meal and so of the local night life. The next day was spent getting our clocks in order so to speak, we slept and got ourselves up to speed by the evening and had another great night. The next day we took a helicopter flight into the interior of the country and landed near one of the big reserves there. 

As we came in to land I could see a herd of elephants in the distance and my lady friend could too and she got so excited because she absolutely adores them.  The pilot got out and then we got out and we walked over to a large building which was like a bit of a museum, entry building thing and it had displays on all the animals in the park as well as some of the activities they had going on in the park.  A gentle giant of a man approached us and he was a native who spoke very softly with a strongly accented english.

We had organised a helicopter tour of the reserve and needed a guide who was capable of taking the journey with us, as it turned out this was our man.  It was amazing to see the well preserved skull of a lion so close and actually touch the big canine teeth which looked as big as my fingers.  On the wall behind it was an elephant tusk that had been recovered from poachers, something caught my eye.. a donation tin with a message please help us stop poachers from stealing these natural treasures with an arrow to this enourmous tusk.  I pointed it out to my lady friend and we both grabbed the biggest note each we could find and stuffed it in the tin.

Our big guide just gave this huge grin as if to say thank you very much, I know I'm speaking for myself but I'm sure my lady friend would totally agree - killing elephants is wrong, They have no intrinsic value apart from their ivory and to be honest what poachers are paid is a lot less than is made on the trade of illegal ivory.  There are good enough substitutes nowadays why remove the last remnants of a species for some small expensive trinket.  If you want something expensive buy gold or diamonds, not ivory.

Anyway back to the dream, we left the hall and got back into our nice helicopter for a journey along the boundary of the reserve and then over the interior. As we flew along this gorgeous river the guide explained that the land on the left of the river was reserve the land on the other was not.  The river itself was part of the reserve but when it dried up it made access for poachers easier and the jobs of rangers a lot harder.

Soon we were flying low over a gorgeous big lake and could see large masses in the water ahead, they were hippo's and some moved toward the shore while others just went under water as we flew safey overhead and banked to our left as we headed inland.  Looking down we could see zebras and gazelles etc in the grasslands, spreading as we approached naturally our flight may have upset a few lions but I did notice it help one particular pride by sending a small herd of zebra right to them.

As we ventured further inland my lady friend suddenly got really excited again, I know this coz she excitedly hit my arm then pulled on my sleeve to get my attention.  I turned to see her smiling huge and pointing, she was talking excitedly but I couldn't hear her. I told her, "You need to push the button on your headset to talk so we can hear you".... next thing I hear is this excited yet quick "sorry" followed by ... "look look look giraffes, a herd of giraffes and a bit to the right of them a bigger herd of elephants than
the one we saw when we got to the park."

The smile on her face was enormous it went from one ear to the other for certain, and I think it was that big she could've passed for the Cheshire Cat.  Well the flight continued on and we saw a lot more animals, including a cheetah chasing a gazelle which got away. During the flight we saw another 3 herds of giraffes and a couple big elephant herds, as well as lots of zebra and gazelles and a few lion prides.  It got to around noon and I realised we were almost back to the main building which was obviously where we were having lunch.

We sat down to a lovely salad lunch with the pilot and our guide and some other guests to the reserve and that was unfortunately when I woke up because of my damn alarm.