The Cellars-Hohenort Constantia

... Quite a sight...<br><br>The roads through to Verneukpan took us through a dry and desolate landscape. Someone said that when God populated the earth with animals and plants, he missed this area... But it's amazing that despite that, there is still so much that is beautiful and to be admired because it's so different to what one is used to. The bikes slowly spread out as we rode on through some dry, open salt pans and roads.<br><br>About 40km from Verneukpan, we arrived at ...

... motel impressive, flowers in bloom on camp awesome. The downside is the N7 running past and the noise of the traffic. Sounds like airplanes coming in to land where the trucks drive past in the night. Not a good nights sleep. On to Namibia tomorrow.<br>

... sanparks standard. The chalets look out of this world and the campsite is really good too!! Great facilities, the coffee shop and the camp shop are good too. <br><br>Walk along to the Falls and there is some water coming over the rocks and down the gorge. The weather is warm and sunny and we do the Dassie Hiking Trail. Must admit the scenery here is absolutely outstanding. We see dassies, baboons, birds of prey, swallows, egyptian geese. On Wednesday we ...

Today was our last night in a tent.  Can't believe that there is so little time left of our trip.  We are currently staying on a vineyard that sells Highlander wine.  We don't have it imported into Canada. It is really beautiful in South Africa.  Looks very similar to BC because everything is so green and lush.  <br><br><br>We were treated to a wine tasting in the late afternoon.  All of the grapes were grown on the vineyard and then taken to a local company ...

... Think we're going to Brasa (serves Portuguese food), but the same people also own Ocean Basket, the restaurant right next door, and apparently you can order off of both menus!! Kind of defeats the purpose of having 2 restaurants to me, but what do I know! My bags are packed and I'm ready to head out of here! Hopefully I'll have some interesting stories to tell from Joburg. Thanks for reading my blogs! Signing off from St. Lucia, Barbs

... that the chickens couldn't get in and ruin her plants. So, last time they had already dug some holes and cemented in some tree trunks. Yesterday they were fixing the wire fencing to those posts. The rest of us were digging more holes for more posts, watching Senzo prepare the cement, and then helping to put the cement around the posts. It's about 75% done. Was pretty funny as a chicken did come by and try to run into the garden and ran ...

... the right and there is a manmade beach between. The two used to link up and the river used to flow into the sea, but there was a boat accident in the INdian Ocean, I guess somewhere close to St Lucia, and because of the oil leakage they closed off the entrance to the estuary so that the oil would not move upriver and affect the ecosystem. Of course the ecosystem has still been affected as there is now no influx of water or tidal ...

... for Barney!!! So we actually had their attention captured for about an hour and then it was free play for the rest of the morning. My little Du-lie stayed with me the whole time - I want to meet her mother! Du-Lie has a very large umbilical hernia. I'm hoping they will have it fixed as it looks too big to correct itself naturally. Many of the kids actually have these hernias - I wonder what the cause could be?? Will ...

... good morning, etc. I'm thinking why do they need to tell us this - coming from Bermuda, this is just second nature. But I guess it's not natural in every culture / community. Anyway - back to Theo's village, these people put Bermudian hospitality and friendliness to shame!! I have never seen such a happy people before!! I would estimate that 95% of the people we drove by (from the very young to the very old!) gave us big smiles and waves ...

... up the sides of the gentle mountain slopes. The kids seemed to enjoy the horse ridding and it gave some more freedom and a break from the normal school routine. After work we went on a very random last-minute-pile-in-one-car to go shopping at Canal Walk, Century City. It is the largest Shopping Centre in the southern hemisphere, but we still laughed at Tim when he didn't turn up at 9pm, and rang us to say he was lost. It was a really beautiful place at night but I imagine in the day ...