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There is probably not enough time to do a loop of 2R - Auchterlonie - KijKij - 2R

Hi MarieK,

We are getting ours in the PnP in Upington. As we land on Sunday (yippee) we are putting our order in today through our 4x4 rental.
I'm going to Hijack your thread for a second with a relevant question for both of us.

Do you get Boerewust (sic) frozen or should we just get it vaccum packed. We are wondering how long it would last if vaccum packed? We would need it to last 8 days.
Apart from that we are going to get the first 3 days meat vaccum packed and the rest frozen. This will be a mixture of lamb chops (cheers p@m), fillet steak and steak pieces for a stir fry. My wife was enquiring about Ostrich steaks but I don't know if it is ethical or even allowed to bring game meat into a national park so I think we'll stick to the beef, lamb and pig.

If vacuum packed and frozen it will last longer.

Just ask them to vacuum pack the boerewors too...........we usually ask them for x amount of pieces 15 cm long per pack............depending on how many people you are and if you want some cold boerewors for the next day as padkos.

Thanks Lionqueen,
We'll ask them to vac and freeze everything including the Boerewors so. Thanks. for the tip. We'll bring a freezer bag in our luggage and ask the PnP to put some juice boxes in the freezer along with our meat order. Plus we can wrap everything in newspaper. We have a fridge in the car but I'm unsure what size.
Looking at the weather forecast it looks nice and warm so I don't think we'll have any problems defrosting the days meat supply in the car.

I'm not sure what your idea of nice and warm is...............this morning in town minus 2..........and at this moment 12.............this is not my idea of nice and warm...............

What I do to defrost the meat............put some hot water into kitchen sink............put meat in and with in anything between half an hour to an hour your meat will be defrosted, depending on the cut and how much you need to defrost. When water cools down and meat is not defrosted, just repeat the process.

We bought our meat at Skaapland Butchery in Upington. Good price and service. Tel. nr. 054 3311599. 8 Brug street, Upington.

Coens when was this????

Why???

We did did this in Feb 2011, ordered vacuum packed and frozen.

Just something some-one said a while ago, that had me under a different impression.........we don't buy our day to day meat there, so I really can't say any thing about them.

Heard via the town grapevine, that there is an OK foodstore opening there soon???

l q

Hi Marie

You must be excited about the trip!

One thing to also remember - stock up on mineral water in Upington! You will find water in the park is expensive and the tap water is yuck-yuck...



Good idea is to find one of these "reverse osmosis" vendors where you can literally buy 10L of water for R9. We normally take about 20L per week of accomodation in KTP.

We have been able to keep meat frozen for more than 10 days by keeping one cooler box dedicated to frozen meat, and stacking it in order of "menu" (ie what is scheduled to be eaten on the first day is on top, and the last day's meat at the bottom). Then ONLY open it when you are taking meat out. Beef up (pun intended) the frozen meat with some of those blue freezer packs, and whenever you do have accomodation with a freezer, freeze everything overnight so you can regain some frigidity

Some winning ideas from our trips...

Breakfast: always a quick rusk with coffee or even a bowl of ProNutro or Corn Flakes before we drive out (usually first out the gate hehe)

Brunch/Lunch:
If eating in the camp - the usual eggs, cheese grillers, bacon, toast etc will do. Often there's some meat left from the previous night's braai - eg if you have "wors" (sausage) left, make some "pap" (porridge) with it. We even once made "dagwoods" over the fire at Rooiputs.

If eating at a picnic spot en route the following work well:
1. Jaffels. Prepare some mince the night before. Have a jaffel clamper and gas braai with you. Prepare jaffels by placing meat and some chutney or mustard or whatever inside the bread, clamp down in the jaffel maker, cut off the protruding crusts and grill directly on the "cadac" gas braai. Works well since most loaves of pre-cut bread can last a bit longer than rolls or buns

2. Hamburgers. Works best early in the trip when you can bring fresh buns from Upington. Prepare patties and caramelised onions the night before, and en route just build them to taste with some tomatoes and cheese added to the mix.

3. Cold chicken. When braaiing a "flat marinated"(flatty in local slang) chicken, make enough so that you can eat some nice cold chicken the next day.

Dinner:
Here's where you can fork out the good stuff. Favourites to date prepared IN KTP...

1. Lamb shanks - grill in a flat-bed black pot over a gas flame or even over the fire. Add an oil-based salad dressing (ie French), one bottle per 2 shanks and cook until it almost falls off the bone! I also add some sundried tomatoes into the pot. Serve with a nice "easy-to-prepare" pasta packet (Knorr or the likes). If you can, works best with couscous.

2. Biltong Pot - pasta, loads of cheese, loads of "wet" beef biltong sliced nicely, sour cream, onions, green peppers

3. Marinated pre-cooked spare ribs, easy to prepare - a real bush feast.

Thanks for the defrosting tips.
It's about 13 degs over here at the mo but looking at the 10 day forecast for Upington, there are temps in the low to mid 20s predicted. That's lovely and warm for me. I'll be easily recognised in the rest camps, bleached looking guy sweating a lot. I can't wear shorts at night because the moths keep flying into my legs.

Anyway sorry for going off topic.

AFAIK Skaapland in Upington closed down some time ago. When we went through there now in April they were defnitely not open.

Blackie

Absolutely nothing wrong by by taking game meat (venison) into a national park. Ostrich meat is very healthy and has the heart foundation's seal of approval. South Africa's reputation as wildlife conservationists rank amongst the best in the world and your ostrich fillet will come from one of the thousands of game farms in our country, and not from a poached animal.