The decission
After many travels trough Africa we decided to live on this beautiful continent. We fell in love with Africa on our first trip and in between holidays we made our scrapbook, planned a new safari and watched every documentary about Africa. We soon choose South Africa as our new country because it is the most western country in Africa and has good schools and hospitals.
We wanted to live in the bush and to make a living we decided to start a lodge. We thought it would be great to host people who where on holiday in this fantastic country. Although neither of us had experience in the tourism industry, we were confident that we could make it a success.
In September 2002 we came to the lowveld , as the area around the Kruger Park is called, for the first time to look for properties. Between Christmas and New Year we went back but the property that we liked was just sold. In April 2003 we came back again, this time with our parents who wanted to see where their children were going to live. We found a property in the Balule Private Nature Reserve with an old empty building on it and bought it.
Leaving
We had put up our house for sale in January already and we were busy with all the paperwork that comes with an emigration. We filled out all the forms and made a business plan after which we went to the South African embassy in Den Haag to hand it in. In September that year we go tour temporary residence for two years and shortly after that our house got sold. We resigned our jobs and started to arrange the last things. In January 2004 we moved out of our house. All our belongings were packed in a container and shipped to South Africa and we stayed with our parents for our last two weeks in the Netherlands. On 26 January we brought our two dogs to a company who would take care of their flight to South Africa. Then we went to Schiphol with both our parents and our best friends. After an emotional farewell we finally were on our way to our new life.
The arrival
The next morning we arrived in Johannesburg, where we were picked up by someone of the rental company. For the first ten day we had rented a camper, since there were no facilities to live at our new property yet. With our mobile home we drove to the hotel close by the airport where we were going to stay one night. The next day we picked up our dogs. Their plane had a delay so we could only leave for our new home at two pm. From Johannesburg it is 460 kilometres to Hoedspruit and with the camper it took us a long time. We arrived here at half past eight in the evening and it was completely dark. We were tired and went to bed early. At 5 o clock the next morning it was light already and we got up to see our new home. It was even more dilapidated then we remembered from our visit almost a year ago and for a moment we dreaded the enormous task that waited us here. We sat on the small terrace to have some breakfast and then two kudu’s stepped out of the bushes and walked past. It reminded us of why we were here and gave us the strength to start this adventure.
We now live here, at our Amukela Game Lodge for seven years already and still enjoy it every day!
Regards from the bush
Miriam
