The Life and Adventures of Gregwah

That’s right, on 21 Sept 2008 with my arrival back in Melbourne, my overseas adventure has come to an end. What a grand adventure it was, 1170 days or 3 years, 2 months and 12 days of shennanigans! I’m fully aware that today is the 6th of Oct but I’ve never been that good at keeping my blog up-to-date. Hopefully that will change now that I’m back home, although admittedly it hasn’t gotten off to a good start. Nuts.

Having sorted my life out I’ve come to the conclusion that unfortunately there is no future for me in Africa. Add to that my desire to once again be at home amongst (no, not the gum trees!) my friends and family it was the logical decision to make. The other main deciding fact was whilst home last time I managed to wangle a ride in a helicopter, boy what a magical ride it was. It also convinced me that that was what I really should be doing. Hence I finished things up in Africa and returned home to head down the road of becoming a commercial helicopter pilot. We’re currently in the process of whittling down our selection of schools and coming up with the best way to achieve the theory and practical study required. I’m planning to keep and extensive blog of my flying activities whilst learning so won’t bore youse anymore with it here.

As I said I’ve been back in Melbourne since 21 Sept. I arrived in Syd on 17 Sept and spent a few days in Syd with Pete & Megs, Dad also made the trip up too. With Megs on stage all that week, Pete managed to wrangle a few days off work and the boys spent Thur, Fri, Sat and Sunday enjoying ourselves. Originally it was the plan that I would live in Syd till the end of the year to get my Private Pilots Licence (PPL) in fixed wing aircraft before returning to Melb after Christmast to convert to helicopters and go through to my Commerical Pilots Licence (CPL(H)). So we spent a day out at Bankstown Airport checking out fixed wing schools there. Quite a pleasant day and we learned a lot. Namely that there are a lotta ’sausage factory’ type schools out there, pumping through foreign students who are all competing for instructor and flying time. Not the place you really wanna learn. (and they fall outta the sky occasionally http://www.smh.com.au/news/national/second-indian-student-pilot-killed/2008/09/25/1222217388741.html). However after talking to the helicopter schools down here, we’ve determined it’s best to go all the way through on helicopters, because you’ll end up with more total hours in helicopters, which is all that really matters when going for heli jobs. Mum was very happy to hear that I’d be back living with her for at least the next 6 months (no, really)!!

Since my arrival back in Melbourne I’ve been keeping fairly low key, most of my energies have been devoted to getting all my flying and related stuff organised. Catching up with the family and even seeing a few friends. As per usual in this situation for me, there are a bunch of people who don’t even know I’m actually back in the country… That’ll change no doubt. I turned 31 during last week and that was also a low key affair. Couldn’t possibly compete with my 30th, where I was in Kruger Park and saw Big 5 in one day, so didn’t really bother. A lunch, a dinner and a few drinks last Friday were all that I bothered with. I don’t seem to get all excited about it anymore, does that mean I’m offically old? Dammit!

I am, or will be, come the middle of September!! Over three years since I left home, and just under three years since my arrival on the Dark Continent. I booked my ticket yesterday and arrive in Syd on the 17th of Sept, after spending a few days in Syd I’ll be heading down to Melbourne around Sunday the 21st. Things have been interesting here, and whilst it’s nice to be back in Africa I really can’t wait to be living back in Australia, the last trip home really sorted it out for me.

Glenn and Em are coming to visit me for the first two weeks of Sept, it’s almost three years since I’ve seen Glenn. We’re getting as bad as Walter and I!! I’m once again looking forward to spending a bit of time in Kruger Park, especially as I don’t expect to be back for a while! Charles and Marile are also leaving Mozambique (No one believes me when I say I’m a trendsetter, yet, here is another shinning example..) and have got a job running a rather large game farm in South Africa.

My plan as it stands now (stop laughing, I know there have been lotsa plans, believe me!!) is to live in Syd with Pete and Megs till Christmas whilst getting my Private Pilots Licence (PPL), then in Melbourne for the first few months of next year to get my Comercial Helicopter Licence. After that I’ll be off chasing work wherever I can find it. Once again just a few months at home, but that’s the way I like it. Just glad that I’ll be somewhere in my home country again!

As usual I have lots of stories to tell (some of them are even true!). I’m heading back to Moz tomorrow and will prolly be heading straight to the beach to wind up my business guff. See you all in around a month!

Well, I’ve finally made it back to Mozambique, my return to the farm is imminent! Can’t wait to see my dog again! It’s been long few days, firstly, my flight from Sydney to Joburg was two hours late, causing me to miss the last bus to Nelspruit that evening. So after being awake for more than 24hours I wasn’t impressed to have to bugger around and find a place to stay overnight. After a bit of fuffing around I was able to locate and make my way to some accommodation that didn’t cost a fortune. Upon arriving I tried to organise my shuttle to Nelspruit the next morning only to find that the shuttles were all booked until the afternoon. Amazing how missing one bus by half an hour can put you back a whole day! Nuts!

The trip upto Nelspruit was pretty uneventful and I checked into my usual backpackers, happy to have a few beers with friends I’ve not seen for a few months. How time flies, they thought I’d been gone for only a month, when in fact I’d been gone for more than 3! Thursday was spent organising my Moz visa and shopping whilst I waited. Once again managed to get myself a 6 month visa, of course with the bugger of having to leave the country every 30 days. Geez I hate that. Jumped on they bus to come through to Maputo on Friday lunchtime, again reasonably uneventful until after the border where the bus had a blow out. Bugger! Fearing that we could be trapped by the side of the road for hours, and that infact I’d never get to Maputo to meet Christen, I was able to jump off the bus and get on another bus, all with in 5 mins! Good work!

I arrived in Maputo last night only a few hours late, and met up with Christen. We’ve not seen each other for over two years since her, Jimmy, Maryann and I travelled Sth Africa and Zambia together in early 2006. Bloody long time but nothing much has changed, still the eating, drinking and funny times! She’s here working for an NGO for six months as part of her Masters… Nerd! I hear you shouting, yes I would agree!

I’ll be returning to the farm tomorrow, only I’ve the slight problem that I’m unable to get a hold of Charles atm. His phone has been off since I got into Mozambique yesterday. Oh well, I’m sure, as usual, that problem will sort itself out. This will most likely be my last post for a while, as you know, back on the farm there is no such magical thing as ‘internet’. Not sure when I’ll be online again, so, see ya!

I know, I know, I can’t believe it myself. Yes, I’ve finally built a photo section onto www.gregdick.com/photos, it can also be accessed from the menu ‘Photos’ on the top right of this page. It’s only taken me years to do, however, I’m quite proud of my efforts this time around. I’ve posted a bunch of photos up there and there will be more to come from my adventures. Enjoy looking at ‘em ‘cos I sure enjoy taking ‘em.

G.

Well let me start by saying sorry for not posting for so long. Given that I’ve been back in Australia since the start of April this really is not cool. Most, well some? of you may have noticed that my blog was down for a while due to hosting issues (different issues to those which saw gregdick.com as a porn site for a while after I forgot to renew my domain name!!). My old hosting expired and I wasn’t too quick at getting the new one up and running. However, with many thanks to my ‘cuz Lachlan, I’ve now got hosting for my site.

Many things have happened since my last stories of a serial killer pig and attacking bees. It’s been an intersting time to say the least since my last post. I returned to this fair land on 3 April this year and managed to spend a grouse 4 days in Sydney with my brother and his wife, playing golf, drinking beer and generally trying to get over the massive culture-shock I suffer when ever I return to Australia! It does take a while to get used to not being in the minority again, to the huge range of products available at the supermarket (which is 5 mins down the road!) and to being able to eat something without having to kill it first! Luxury! Suffice to say a great time was had by all, by which I mean me, in Sydney.

My return to Melbourne however, was not so great… Long story short, I arrived to the news that my Dad was leaving and my folks are getting divorced. Welcome home Greg! For just about everyone, myself included, this came as a huge surprise and somewhat of a shock. Like all couples who’ve been married for forty years things have their ups and downs, and things had been down for a while but I guess like most kids you don’t really expect your parents to divorce, it seems to be something that happens to other people. Yet anther lesson in the real world for me to learn. Crap. Suffice to say it’s been a tough time since then trying to sort out not only the emotional complications for everyone involved in a break up, but the logistical complications as well. In the two and a half months since this happened things have settled down to a dull roar, with all parties having regained (most of) their composure and things are now in the process of being sorted amicably… well, it’d better be or I’m bloody well bringing my elephant gun back at Christmas.

The reason for my return was to attend my cousin’s wedding in May. Who gets married in May in Melbourne you ask?? Well, Jen and Steve do. Yes, even though it wasn’t offically Winter yet, they took the plunge then, funnily enough, so did the weather! Argh! The location was a lovely little winery up in the Yarra Valley. It didn’t rain all the week before, or the week after, but we all awoke on Saturday to the sound of rain, heavy rain, on our roofs. Bugger. Did I mention that it was also a little cold? Bloody freezing I would have said! But what do I know, I live in bloody Mozambique! The bride was resplendant in the cream, the bone, the white, the off white, the ivory or the beige, I couldn’t tell! I was far too busy admiring her wonderful blue sholders in her strapless gown. It was a classic, deep shade of blue emanating down from her shoulders the entire length of her arms, wonderfully setting off the bright crispness of the dress! I guess the adrenaline somehow kept her teeth from chattering!

Thankfully this was one of those fully self contained weddings where the post wedding/pre reception drinks were about fifty metres from the chapel, which in turn, was about fifty metres from the reception. At least that part was well thought out!! More to the point there were bloody great heaters along with the drinks. Good times! The lunchtime reception was heartily and enthusiastically enjoyed by all, being at a winery sure helped! I had the pleasure of sitting next to Dad’s best mate, who just happens to have owned a winery, needless to say we really enjoyed ourselves and made the most of not only our location, but the fact that neither of us were driving. The younger ones kicked on later in the evening with a great pub dinner in town. The old people went home and collapsed. I’m still young!

It was not my intention to stay this long at home, however, for obvious reasons I extended my stay a little while. The time is now upon us when I must once again leave for the dark continent. Wednesday the ninth is the day. Funnily enough, and I didn’t realise this until after I’d changed my tix, the ninth of July 2005 is the day I left for my adventure. Three years to the day and I’m once again departing! So, to all the girls I’ve loved before, and those I’m yet to love, don’t worry my darlings, I’ll be back for Christmas… that’s better, I see smiles already!

Our pig, Bacon (who, by the way, thinks he’s one of our dogs), has turned into a serial killer. Let me start at the beginning; Every thirty days, those of us on tourist visas, have to leave Mozambique. Charles and Marile had headed down to Joburg to visit his parents, so, as usual I’m here by myself for a week or so. No big deal. This week started out badly from the beginning. The first day wasn’t too bad, until I went to start the generator. First of all, the electronic start didn’t work due to the fact that whoever had stopped it the night before left the key in the ‘on’ position flattening the battery. No problem, it has a pull start backup and started first time. However, it then proceeded to run, but not exactly what you’d call smoothly. Surging up and down the rev range did not make me happy. After going through the usual list of what could be causing it, I ended up at the carbie. After fiddling a bit with it I at least got it to run at a constant rpm, albiet a little higher than normal but once you put it under load it was OK. First problem solved with a lot of swearing and the ever faithful Gerber tool.

We live on a hill overlooking the flood plain of the Limpopo River. We have a tank, on a stand, on top of the hill for our water. This really was the cause of all of the rest of the problems for the week. We have a pump at the bottom of the hill to pump water to the tank. This one is started hand by with a crank handle. The cranking handle has teeth cut into it, and the crank shaft has a piece fastened to it that matches those teeth, you slide the handle on the shaft, give it a crank and away she goes, in theory at least. However the piece fastened to the crankshaft wasn’t fastened properly and need to be tightened with an allen key. Now, I knew we had said allen key because Johan left one behind to do the job. We had it out when trying to attach a scope to the air rifle a few days before, but do you think I could find it when the water ran out? No bloody way. This is where once again, my faithful Gerber tool saved the day. The flat screw driver happened to fit in the screw and I was able to fasten the toothy thing to the crank shaft. Another problem solved, we had water again.

Now, as I said, the water tank really was the beginning of the problem all along. Randomly, the tank was running dry, usually overnight, when no water should have been being used. However, over the preceeding weeks we couldn’t figure out where we were loosing it as all taps were closed and toilets weren’t leaking. On Tuesday we discovered water running down the side of the tower and, Bingo!, we thought we’d found the problem. The water tower is brick, about two stories high. At it’s base it’s about six meters by 3 meters. There also happens to be a beehive inside the top of the tower, just to make things interesting. So we made an extra long extension ladder, and no, I’m not going to tell you how this was achieved! Having scaled the rickety ladder to the top of the world (ok, just the top of the tank stand, but it’s the highest place for miles!) we now had the offending tank in our sights. With a couple of the guys and a few bees buzzing around we rolled the tank over, manouvered it a bit and eventually found the leak, I hoped. Not a big crack but one that obviously leaks under pressure. After finding the right glues and making a patch I glued it on and hoped for the best. The instructions on this ‘plastiweld’ glue stated that it must be left for 24hrs to cure properly and have maximum effect, ‘fat chance’ I thought, I’ve got horses, other animals and me to water today. I decided we’d give it until after lunch and see how it looked, given it was only about 8:30am at this stage I hoped it would be long enough. Little was I to know that indeed it would get the full 24hrs!

Everyone then went back to their jobs until lunchtime. During lunch I notice that the guys were not lying around sleeping as usual, and this is unusual because they’ll sleep any chance they get! I wandered over to see what they were upto. I found them constructing what really amounted to a large pizza lift, the kind you see a person using in a large wood fired pizza oven. It had a long handle with a flat piece on the end. They’re also making what I recognised as a ’smoke bomb’ for want of a better description. This is basically dried tinder and grass the size and shape of a small coke bottle wrapped up in greenery and all secured with vines. It comes out to be a bit bigger than a rugby ball, you light the dried matter inside and as it smolders the surrounding greenery makes smoke. This, in theory, subdues bees. Now, I’d been up there that morning, right next to the hive and hadn’t had a problem. So, I thought to myself, if they wanna make smoke bombs and raid the hive for honey it shouldn’t be too much of a problem. They seem to know what they’re doing, it looks like they’ve done it plenty of times before, I might learn something by watching. I tell you what I learned - stay the hell away from bees!

The raid took place, smoke everywhere, and as per usual around here, everything seems to be on fire. There were three guys on top with a smoke bomb and the other guys were on the ground holding the big pizza lift with a smoke bomb on it near the hive entrance. So far so good. The guys on top opened the hatch and reached in, bad move. A giant, angry swarm of bees shot out and attacked everything, and I mean everything. The guys down the bottom covering their mates up top dropped the pizza lift with smoke bomb at the first sign of trouble and ran, leaving those up top in even more trouble. With all thoughts of fresh honey gone, the race was now on to see who could get away fastest, they’re not the bravest of fellows. The last guy down the ladder practically jumped from the top. By this time the farm was a ghost town, where there were ten black guys standing around offering helpful advice there were now none. This had taken around 30 seconds flat. Of course, I was standing on the porch of the house, about 30 meters away, laughing my arse off at these guys, I mean serious laughing. That is, until the freakin’ bees headed my way in search of their antagonizers. Apparently bees are color blind and they came straight for me, a bloody noisy, angry cloud intent on revenge. It was then my turn to run, straight inside slamming the door behind me! The house is sealed with screens to prevent mozzies getting in so I was alright. I proceeded to close all the windows to prevent their assault reaching me. Unfortunately, all of our animals, who think they’re human and hence reside on our porch, were right where they like to be, on our porch, where, until seconds before I had been too.

Now the commotion really started, firstly the dogs started yelping as they were attacked. I managed to call them inside OK and relieved the shorter haired canines of their stings. Outside, fighting the bees are the three parrots, the ducks and ducklings and of course Bacon. Bacon ran off squeeling, he’s got thick skin so he was the least of my worries. The ducks and the parrots were having a rough time. I ran out and grabbed one of the parrots, not being able to see the other two at that moment. I should mention I was only wearing a pair of shorts and had wrapped myself in a towel for this particular sortie, not the best attire to negotiate a swarm off angry bees. Upon re-entering the house I decided I needed to be better equipped for the fight or I could have a problem. That, however, involved running the gauntlet to my room. Once there I donned long pants, boots, and a long sleeved shirt. My mozzie net was hastily modified to fit over my hat in a bee keeperish sorta way. Ok, I thought, now I’m in business. However, in my haste I’d put on the wrong pair of army pants. These came from Pete, who has slightly shorter legs than I, and are made with elastic at the bottom designed to blouse around high army boots. Mistake number one, this now left a nice inch or so of bare skin (I was sockless) between the tops of my Blunstone boots and the bottom of my pants. I got nailed there twice before even making it back to the porch. I also forgot to button up my sleeves, leaving my forearms and hands exposed. More bloody stings, however I was bloody worried about the animals and the adrenaline was now flowing so back to the battle field I went.

Most of the ducks by now had escaped, but the mother duck and her ducklings were still there, with Mum copping the worst of it. I grabbed her round the neck and threw her in the door, closing it behind her. Now, I should tell you, we spend most of our time chasing the ducklings out of the house and off the porch (’cos they crap everywhere) so there really wasn’t much chance of me catching them all and getting them inside so they were on their own, not doing too badly by all accounts as they’d managed to hide away amongst the shelves and boxes. Now my attention returned to the two remaining parrots, I found the second girl on the other side of the wall taking refuge in the long grass, she’d been horribly stung on the flesh around her eyes and was in a bad way. No sign of the third parrot, much to my concern. I got her inside and the stings out, there must have been at least ten on the tiny little thing. Marile has raised them by hand and they sit out on the porch during they day, playing on their tree we’ve installed for them and at night the come inside and roost on the curtain rails in her and Charles’ bedroom. They’ll quite happily sit on your shoulder and ride around with you.

Little Macie was very ill, her tiny feet curled up into fists of torment, not even able to stand she was in so much pain. She just lay down on her tummy in the hospital box on top of the rags. I gave her Terramycin and could do nothing but wait. During this time I went out again to look for number three but couldn’t find him, by this time I was very worried considering the state of Macie but there was nothing I could do. I made sure the other animals seemed to have escaped OK then returned inside to tend to my own stings. I lost count of the stings as they were happening but I got done at least ten times if not more. A couple on the face, and numerous ones on arms, legs and torso. Wonderful fun! Thankfully, although they sting like hell at the time, making you really jump and yell, the pain soon goes away and you’re OK, except for a bit of swelling and tenderness. Now all I could do was make sure the dogs were ok and wait until the swarm had buggered off before searching for the rest of the animals. Don’t forget, that it was now mid afternoon and the water tank was still on it’s side and empty, and with the evident anger of the bees, looked to remain that way until tomorrow. During that time inside I could hear the other parrot calling out, most of the bees seemed to have left by this time so I went out for another look. However, one bee around the place is enough to attack you again and bring all the others back! Argh! This time I managed to find number three, who was fine having made it all the way to the tree by our vegetable garden where he was able to take refuge. So he was made safe inside and I had to attend to a few more stings. There was now nothing for me to do but sit and wait, attending to Macie as best I could, unfortunately she died about an hour later.

I still had animals and myself to water, time to make a plan. Once the bees had retreated enough to venture outside I set about rounding up the guys from various corners of the farm, using various methods to coax them back. We then grabbed the horses water buckets and placed them at the bottom of the tank stand. This is of course after more fires were lit to subdue the bees still hanging around. Bear in mind that the hose feeding the tank from the pump is attached to the top of the tower but not to the tank, which is standing on it’s side. I got them to start the pump down below and we filled the horse buckets with the cascading water, as well as a few buckets for other animals. I had a Jerry can of filtered water me to drink. Now the water problem was solved, except no shower for me that night - lucky I’m on my own!!The scene was set for completing the repairs early next morning.  Upon my rounds of the animals I discovered that our white male duck had not returned and for the life of me I couldn’t find him. More worry. After finding the ducklings and rounding them up for a look I noticed that one was suffering from a couple of stings so I caught him, removed the stings, gave him some Terramycin and placed him in our hospital box for observation. After a few hours he seemed perky and fine so I returned him to his family that evening.

The next morning the white male duck had turned up and was not well after suffering multiple stings to the large fleshy parts around his eyes. I again administered Terramycin, and smeared anti-inflamitory cream around he’s eyes. The duckling from the night before had also not appreared again. I found him in his roost and he was not well either, so it was back inside for him to the hospital box and more Terramycin. He was very unwell and I didn’t hold out much hope. The repairs got underway again at 6am, with virtually no sign of the still sleeping bees. Up on top I checked the patch, which, to my surprise looked surprisingly good. We manouvered the tank back into position and attached the inlet and outlet pipes. It was about 9am by this time and our male duck was starting to look much better, sitting up properly and looking around a bit, making me much happier about his prospects for survival. The tank was now back in place, hopefully fixed, so we cranked up the pump to see. Whilst it was filling we all returned to our regular work. I returned to the house. Hearing a commotion I went outside. To my dismay, there on the ground, was a headless duckling. Next to it, Bacon was happily munching away in his food bowl. When ever Bacon gets fed the ducklings try to steal his food out of his bowl, this time Bacon chowed one of them. Bacon was now banished to the other side of the fence around the house, seriously banished, gates were tied up and so on so he couldn’t get through. Around 20 minutes later the blacks were calling “Boss Greg, Boss Greg!” I came out to find that Bacon has broken back through the fence and attacked the the white male duck whilst he was recovering, killing him. Bloody hell. Once again, with much swearing Bacon is banished back behind the fence. The rest of the day went pretty normally, the little duckling in hospital was hanging on, but only just. I didn’t have high hopes for the little guy.

The next day, Friday, went from bad to worse. When I awoke I was unable to find the ducklings, any of them. Now I’m really upset, it seems pretty obvious that Bacon has eaten the rest of them overnight, even the black guys tell me this. Mum is wandering around, eating as usual. Thankfully all our baby chickens are OK as Bacon can’t ever seem to get near them, they’re too quick. OK, I thought, now there are no sick or young ducks around, it should be OK. The little duckling in hospital had also died overnight. I had to go to Xai-Xai for some food shopping as I had run out of rice to feed the dogs, as well as a few other things including beer. Returning in the early afternoon I was greeted by the guys, again with bad news. Bacon, still banished on his side of the fence had attacked and killed one of our female ducks, I really couldn’t believe it. Bacon had really done it this time, his total was now 5 ducklings, one big male duck, and now one female duck. Crap. We haven’t rebuilt the old milking shed here yet and one of the side rooms is about 3 meters by 3 meters, this is now Bacon’s cell, never to be let out until the joyous day we put him on a spit. I guess he’s figured out that we plan to eat him so he decided to get a bit of his own back before his time was up. Bring on the death penalty I say, at least there is no appeals process here for the lawyers to get fat off. We are Judge, Jury, Executioners and consumers! I wonder if he’ll have a slight duck flavour?

NOTE: This all happened two weeks ago, the postscript is that we’ve yet to eat Bacaon although he’s fattening up nicely. The patch on the tank didn’t work, the pressure being too much for the glue I’m guessing, because I haven’t been back up there to look. We have no cement to block up the hive hole with so I’m not risking setting off another chain of events like the one above! See you all in two weeks.

Yes folks you’ve guessed it, another bloody visa run to South Africa. I must stay that I’m sick of having to make the journey here every 30 days. Although it is nice to come here and eat something without having to kill it first!

The main news here is that we’re back on the farm after running horse trails at Zongoene Lodge (At the mouth of the Limpopo River on the Indian Ocean) for the Christmas/NY period. Had a ball down there, got into fishing (not that I really caught much, and I definatly lost two BIG fish dammit!). Spent lotsa time on the beach, lotsa swimming and partying. Charles’ best mate and his cousin spent a week with us over New Year which was a hell of a lotta fun!

I’ve finally managed to post some photos on my facebook thingy, granted some are a bit old and there aren’t very many of them but at least they’re there. I’ll be working on adding more as time goes by (when I get internet that is).

For those of you living in Melbourne town (or Syd) hold onto your hats, you’ve got just enough time to get over silly season before I arrive at the beginning of April. I arrive Syd on the 3rd of April and Melbourne on the 7th of April. Once again the usual rules will apply when I’m in town: There are no rules dickheads!! Ha!

I’m off to Moz tomorrow but will be up in Tofo doing more business stuff (and perhaps a little partying) next week, so who knows, maybe I’ll have internet twice this month, what extravigence (spelling has gone today..)!! As you should have noticed above I’m not to far away from cracking the 1000 days since I left home, funnily enough the date I crack it is the date I arrive in Sydney, 3 April 2008. Well, what an excuse for a party huh?

As one last comment, I’m gonna get on the racist bandwagon and tell those bloody curry munchers to either behave like men and play cricket or pack up their bat ‘n’ ball and piss off home…

Later!

`1

Yup it’s that time of the year again! I’m back off to Mozambique in a hour or so and will most likely be outta contact for another month (Dodgy to no phone reception at the beach). So here is me wishing everyone a wonderful Christmas and may your New Year be better than the last!

Yes, gregdick.com is now back in it’s original for after spending a week or so as a porn site ‘cos some dickhead (me!) forgot to renew his domain name! Oh well. I’ve got nine minutes left here so this will have to be short and sweet.

Long story short: I’m still living on the farm in Mozambique and loving it. We’re running horse trails at the luxury beach resort at the mouth of the Limpopo. Tough I know, riding early, then fishing for breakfast, lunch or dinner, depending on how long it takes us to catch something. We’ve eaten a lotta fish and are really enjoying ourselves! On the down side is the fact that it’s wet season and I’m living in a leaky tent. A storm came through the first night and flooded me out, it then rained for the following four days, lets just say I was wet and grumpy! Needless to say that for the few days I’m here in SA on my visa run I’m buying myself a decent tent to live in until we head back to the farm around the middle of Jan.

As for my business I’ve got about 1% along the path so far. Successfully registering my business name with the Moz govt. What a mission and it only gets harder. I’m very good at smiling through clenched teeth. However, nothing worth doing is ever easy. That’s what I tell myself when I want to strangle these people who couldn’t organise a piss up in a brewery!

Times up gotta run!

Long time no speak I know!! However, living where I’m living makes it diffucult to get to internet on a regular basis. I’ve been back in SA for a couple of days now as Mozambique wouldn’t extend my visa any more. I’m just about to jump on a bus to head back. Let me update you on what I’ve been doing and what is happening in the future.

I’ve been on the farm for almost two and a half months now and am loving almost every minute of it. The building of the farm is progressing well, as are the plans for me to start a business and live in Mozambique. In the next few weeks before my return home, I’ll be applying to start a business on my own, this will hopefully lead to me getting my work permit and temporary residency organised, meaning I won’t have to come back to SA regularily on ‘visa runs’… Plans are still in the making for getting our own farm but land in Moz, particuarliy the type we’re after is hard and time consuming to come by. So in the mean time I’m going to start my own photography/videography business here to get the ball rolling.

Walter will be arriving here with Francine on the 28th of this month. They’re planning on staying almost three weeks which will be a hell of a lotta fun. Once again it’s been almost two years since we’ve seen each other. The last time being in Cairo - boy we get around huh? Not long after that I’m heading back to Aus for the month of Sept for Pete & Merryn’s wedding, after which Pete and Merryn will be joining me here for 10days of their honeymoon before they head of to Europe.

Well that’s about it in a nutshell, gotta run now as time is up and the bus wont’ wait for me. See youse all later.