Swartberg Country Manor Oudtshoorn

... rejste derudaf ville jeg vaere Malawi paa det tidspunkt som vi nu naar Windhoek paa, men der er nogle fastsatte datoer. <br>Det goer saa at jeg lige nu ikke nyder den her tur, men jeg haaber paa at det sker et eller andet der kan faa en smule eventyr ind i det igen. Lige nu er en chartertur til Rhodos (eller maaske Malta) mere oplevelsesrig.<br>Saa til min gamle mor: stop med at sende positive energier herned og forsoeg at sende nogle der skaber lidt spaending.

... clear and refreshing and the pool at the<br>botom was perfectly blue. It looked like a good place to swim. Eden<br>and me took off our shoes and went for a paddle, but it was absolutly<br>freezing and made our feet numb. We meet some people from Arizona and one of them was going to jump in the pool. I thought he must be mad and didn't believe he would do it, but he stood on the rock above and jumped right in! He didn't stay in for long though and was quickly out and drying off. On the ...

... the birds remain in the incubator for 3 days and then go to live with foster parents.The parents will care for 60 young birds at a time, and they do not know which babies are theirs and which are not. The birds are slaughtered when they are 14-18 months old, which is fully grown,although they could live for 40 years and have been know to live for80.<br><br>They are used for meat, each ostrich give about 50KG of steak, and the skin. The feathers are still sold, but ...

... was more comical than anything else and I think the "riding" part was more a contest of how long I could actually stay on the ostrich before falling off (which ended up being about 45 seconds). I spent the night at a really nice guest/ farmhouse sort of place and then this morning went to the Cango Caves. The caves were really something. Although not the biggest I've been to, I think the formations here were more spectacular than those I've seen anywhere else.

If you're an ostrich, this is the place to come for work. These birds have been bred hereabouts since the 1870's, and at the turn of the century fortunes were made by the so called "Feather baron's". Pictured is one of the large homes. We went to "The Safari Show Farm ...

... obviously called in the wrong specialists. Going through the cave was really something else. We were able to slip, crawl, squeeze, and contort our bodies through the small crawl spaces to go through, under, and over the space within the cave. They had a space called the coffin and it was pretty eerie, but the name was fitting. Also, they had a slide at the end of our journey. Of course, Rachel and I were the only ones in our small group that went through the whole cave ...

... has a number of very grand houses known as feather palaces. The legacy of these times exists today, and there are lots of ostrich farms still, and loads of shops selling ostrich products from ostrich leather to painted ostrich eggs. In all the restaurants you are of course offered the chance of eating ostrich steak. I tried it and it is a kind of lighter version of beef, but in my opinion ...

... Irish pub right over the road so I can't sleep - hence I'm online! There's also a fire raging through a nearby forest that seems to be in control now, but has been going for about 9 hours already. Helicopters were flying overhead with buckets of water that seemed to do nothing. <br><br>I probably won't write agan until I get back to England. Would be lovely to hear back from you all and see what you're doing these ...

We left the coast temporarily again and headed inland to a place called Oudtshoorn. This area is thick with Afrikaan's. Not the greatest place for vegetarians, they love their meat here. Tons of Ostrich, crocidile and other game dishes. This place is kind of like the area of Graaf Reinet that we were in. Infact they call it the little Karoo or Klein Karoo. It is basically a continuation of that valley. This ...

... woman who kept making jokes. We saw a sort of museum room where she explained all about the different feathers on an ostrich, how many hen eggs will fit in one ostrich egg (25 I think!) and showed us a display of some of the things that have been found in an ostrich stomach. Apparently they can swallow an entire soft drinks can! So then we were taken to look at a nest where you can actually stand on an ostrich egg, I did not though others did - it was them saying that ...