Tradouw Guesthouse Barrydale

... chicken pie, rice and salad;they said it would be served with mash and pumpkin, but as we are the only ones eating I guess they decided to just do microwaved rice to save time. During dinner, while we a helping Eden to eat her rice a glass gets tipped over, it must be cheap because it smashes to pieces!

After dinner the boy lights a fire in the garden and a few of his friends come over. They smoke a home made hookah pipe which they call bubbly. It has flavored tobacco in and ...

... For example, after asking someone for help in locating an ATM in Cape Town, having tried a nearby ATM that seemed to be broken, the woman offered to leave her office and come with us to see if she could be of assistance.) After checking into our incredibly cute cottage room, we left for De Hoop - an almost 90,000-acre coastal reserve apparently mysteriously seldom visited, given its incredible beauty. We ended up on the "long road ...

... discovery by a Karoo farmer in 1780, led to ever progressive numbers of visitors. In the early days, when the Western Cape and Klein Karoo were places far off the beaten track to even adventurous tourists, intrepid Dutch and English farm families would venture up to the caves to explore as far as they could with candles and lamp light (and cart off prizes of stalagmites and stalagmites (yes, we know the difference!). Since then, explorers have ventured ever deeper into the cave system ...

... zebra and Steve came across the smallest frogs in the world. We thought they were insects but proved not to be and they were all over the grass. When the temperature dropped we headed over to the jacuzzi and opened a bottle of bubbly from the mini bar and had that whilst enjoying the other bubbles! The hotel recommended a few restaurants and we opted for the closest one which was conveniently across the road! It was like ...

... these obscure, off the beaten path locations which made the trip that much more special. Even in the small village of Swellendam we asked where the winery was or how to buy the wine and they didn't really know. We ventured off on this trip with the intention of immersing ourselves in the cultures of the places we visited and it's really easier said than done. I don't know how Rachel found them but they enhanced our experiences exponentially.

... up by the camp fire- and we did. The beds were divine and I think we both had a better sleep than we'd had in a while. In the morning we enjoyed a run on the beach, dressed, then went back down to play in the rocks and watch the surfers. We hopped on the Baz Bus in the late afternoon and drove through the pouring rain, hoping our next destination would bring sunshine.

... are the roots of their heritage are often only just over a century old, I forget how young the White South African nation is and how rich and varied our past, historical, cultural and architectural is. I grew up thinking that the Middle Ages, the 13th and 14th centuries, the Tudors and Stuarts were old, that that was history. South Africa didn't even exist then in the eyes of the white man. It all kicked of with Jan Van Riebeeck in 1652. He is acknowledged as the ...

... hitrost malo visja. Tokrat sta prvo zmago zabelezila Naf in Hermida, s casom 4h in 7 min ali nekaj takega. Midva sva nadaljevala po ze ustaljenem ritmu. En par nog se vedno ne vrti tako kot bi moral, drugi pa danes tudi ni bil bolj spocit kot vceraj, no, dosti slabse pa tudi ni. Mogoce je poigravanje prejsnjega dne pustilo nekaj posledic. No, jaz mislim, da sem se danes vsekakor spocil. Etapo sva prevozila spet z vec kot 2-urnim zaostankom ...

... and expandable, enough to swallow a 600ml bottle! These animals are such no-brainers (their brains are smaller than one of their eyes) they will eat anything and you can often tell by the oddly distorted contour of their necks. So there I sat, picture, picture, and then Malene sat on him as well, then they let them go, we had a quick demonstration of ostrich riding and then it was our turn to climb on a bagged animal's ...

... feeding, how their necks can bend in a circle etc. But the highlight was when Amy decided she was going to be the candidate for riding an ostrich. It was hilarious. Amy secured herself on the back of an ostrich with her feet firmly entrenched behind the animals wings, and holding on to its "elbows" for stability. The thing ran around like crazy and provided ...