On Wednesday we went through to the Sabi River Sun in Hazyview so my fiance could play golf with his mate.  This left J and I about 4 hours to amuse ourselves.  Next to the 17th green there is a really large water hole which had around 10 or 12 hippos, about 6 crocodiles (that I could see) and an abundance of bird life.

I would have been quite happy to spend all day there.  Even though my zoom lens is not the greatest, or the fastest I still think I managed to get one or two fairly decent shots.

Unfortunately for me, my son had other ideas.  It was mentioned to him (not by me) that Perry’s Bridge Reptile Park was only 500m down the road and he could go and see all sorts of reptiles including snakes.  Needless to say he was delighted and could not wait, while I was absolutely terrified and tried to think of every excuse NOT to go there.  I have an irrational phobia of snakes, which I have learnt to just accept and live with.

I took him to the reptile park and he had a wonderful time looking at all the snakes, bearded dragons, monitors, crocodiles, toads, spiders and even 2 pot bellied pigs.  He insisted that I take photos of all the snakes so that he can remember them and look at them whenever he wanted to.  Even though they were all safely behind glass, I still felt incredibly uneasy and was very nervous.  Taking photos of these snakes behind glass was a challenge so my mind was mostly occupied with overcoming those challenges rather than freaking out about what the subject matter was.

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This false sense of security didn’t last long however.  J found out that there would be a demonstration while we were there and he wanted to watch.   Soooo, this meant there would be live venomous snakes OUT of their enclosures and I had to be close by to watch!!  (Insert mental picture of a mother freaking out and having a panic attack while trying to hide all these symptoms from her son)

And of course when the opportunity was given for audience members to hold the boa constrictor for a small fee, MY son was first in the queue!!

He cannot stop talking about how much fun he had, and how interesting it was.  So I suppose my sleepless nights and bad dreams are all worth it?  Aren’t they?

You can see more photos of our time there here

I think that these shots just HAVE to be my weekly winners, considering how I managed to control my fear in order to give my son an experience he totally loved.