Jan 9 -14 More fun in George

Wow...its much easier if I blog more frequently but we have been busy and the days fly by and at the end of the days I think..oh i need to blog all this so I don't forget it but I fall asleep instead .  Sunday we went to fellowship and heard Brian preach.  To be honest it brought tears to my eyes as I sat there and thought of how God has brought him to that place and is at work in the church here.  It is an amazing thing to think about.

Springbok near camp in Calitzdorp

Sunday afternoon we went to a farm of some friends who are in their church.  It was quite a drive from here and worth it.  It was so beautiful but sad to say we forgot our camera.  Of course when we first arrive we have tea on the lawn and then we were treated to a tour of the farm where they have acres and acres of rolling hills covered with macadamia trees (30,000 trees) and avocado trees (17,000) and some 225 milk cows....I am not sure why seeing rows of trees in an orchard is so cool but it was.  Hardus (the man who owned the farm) was so full of information and made it so interesting.  He has been here for about 7 years and prepared the land and planted all the trees since they have been there.  He had a farm in another part of the country that they had sold and he wanted to start a new farm in the Cape.  The ground had to be tilled again, miles of sprinkler pipes installed, windbreaks planted and then the trees planted.  When we went back to the house it was 8:30 and we had tea (roibos) again along with a typical "snack" ...bread with sausage and cheese and onions and then toasted....a new combination i had never heard of was jam with grated cheese on it and toasted in the oven....interesting....and not bad at all.  The main reason we went to the farm (I think) was to see flower arrangements as Annalie is doing the flowers for Sally Ann’s wedding ...

On Monday there were errands to be run and packing up for going camping on Tues.  So for us it was a "down" day.  Trish and Sally also went to a rose farm to look at flowers for the wedding...amongst all the things we do are calls and visits to check things out as they are wrapping up the last minute things for the wedding in 2 weeks.

So...Tues...we headed out for our camping trip heading toward Cape Town but driving between 2 mountain ranges.  Behind George is one range that is softer looking mountains...they had clouds draped over them...as we came through those mountains you could see the other mountains which were sharper and bigger...kind of the contrast between the Smokey’s and the Rockies (tho not as big)  We came to the town of Oudtshoorn where there are a ton of ostrich farms.  

Camp at Montagu

We stopped there to buy some ostrich steaks and droerwors or dried sausage.  It was delicious ....then we headed thru the little Karoo (the valley between the two mountain ranges)  It was an amazing view the whole 3 to 4 hour trip.   We set up camp and went to bed fairly early.  There were peacocks somewhere around there and they are extremely loud animals!!  They sound like a cat meowing only way loud and so off and on during the night they carried on...oh well...nature...part of camping right?!!

Breakfast at Wimpy

In the morning we got up early and started with breakfast at Wimpy’s …  and headed to a farm that had tractor/trailer rides up a mountain ... the elevation of the mountain we drove up was 1700 meters (you figure it out).  It was gorgeous the whole ride up and at the top there was a small house where they served drinks and snacks.  

View from Mountain

You could see forever up there...The Mountain was rough with alot of rock formations and different colored wild flowers.  The South African flower is the Protea and we had just missed the blooms that would have covered the mountain side but I thought the dried plants were beautiful in their own way.  It took about an hour and half to get up to the top.  After we arrived at the bottom again we had a meal there in a nice pine and eucalyptus forest with a stream running through it and felt so refreshing after the sun of the trip.  

poikie pots

They served a poikie pot meal that is basically like a slow cook pot of stew type meals.  There was curry, chicken, lamb and ostrich dishes with rice.  All delicious.  They also had nice breads and dessert to of course...and always...tea and coffee.  We were all pretty tired  so we went to a picnic area by a big pond and took some power naps before heading out to our next camping site.  There were some people swimming in the pond there which seemed to be quite deep.  There were 2 diving boards that the kids were jumping off and it looked so tempting....

View from Calitzdorp

On to the next place... Calitzdorp ... a cute town with a hot springs spa with camp grounds.  It was SO nice.   The view from our site of the mountains around the area is hard to describe ... so peaceful and relaxing.  After we set up camp and had dinner … about 9 PM …we went for swim in the hot water pool.  It was so relaxing and a fun way to end the day.  When the sun went down it was cooler right away so the hot felt so good.  That night was a windy night.  We did not realize how windy until we went to bed.  I had just asked Roger if he was sure the tent would stay put and he assured me it would when the  stakes holding my side of the tent up were pulled up, than the canopy over the roof came loose, than Roger’s side of the tent came loose.  After adding more stakes and tied the tent to the car, the wind died down about 1AM and all was fine.

Springbok from campsite

Another cool thing about the camp site was to see springbok roaming around grazing. As we were sititng enjoying the view a herd would walk nearby and stop to eat and then move on. In the morning while fixing breakfast a bunch of peacocks wandered by (they were considerate and were not squawking all night). We had a huge breakfast and after chilling and just sitting around and enjoying good conversation Roger and I decided to go swim again. It was so nice to swim in the cool water pool which was refreshing in the heat of the day but then go in the hot water and relax and then back to the cool. We packed up camp and left for home quite sad to leave. As we drove home there was an obvious heavy rain over the one mt range and heavy clouds over the other side as well and as we arrived back in George the temperature was cool and rainy and we said again…thank you Lord for such a good time AND the beautiful camping weather.

Note: there is now a link to additional pictures taken in South Africa in the left column of the blog.