Not your typical mountain bike trail

Last Wednesday, I took a day of solitude (each one of our team members have committed to taking one a month) and had them drop me off in the Groenkloof Nature Reserve with a mountain bike, Bible, journal, “Life Together” by Dietrich Bonhoeffer, and food for the demanding monster inside of my stomach.  My obsession for exploring nature took over immediately and I hit the trails. Less than 5 minutes into my focused ride, I caught something out of the corner of my eye, and then my heart stopped when I looked up to see a giraffe eating the top out of a tree only about 30-40ft away!  Now, I had been told that there were animals in the park, but I did not know I would be inside the same fence as them!   After fumbling around trying to find my little digital camera (I’m convinced I made more noise while trying not to than I would have otherwise), I realized that there were a total of 5 hanging out chewin’ the cud.  You can imagine the difference in my attentiveness to my surroundings after this encounter, while literally not knowing what I would see around the next corner. I went on to see impalas, guineas, ostriches, wildebeests, and zebra all just tooling around in the brush and open fields.  Go to #10 on my Pretoria/Mamelodi Map to see aerial pictures of the park…good luck finding the giraffes.