We spent last night in the Mooiplaas Guest House, and after scrambled ostrich egg for breakfast, we headed up a beautiful (although rather touristy) valley to the Cango Caves. Can’t say they topped my 35 year old memory of the Jenolan Caves in the Blue Mountains that I visited with mum and dad. The boys were impressed though, and I’m sure had images of dragons and the like living in there.
Onto the ostrich farm. This valley gets to over 40 degrees in the summer and suits the breeding of ostriches. They use the meat (delicious), the eggs (one is the same as 24 chicken eggs), the feathers, and the leather. I refrained from buying a gorgeous ostrich leather handbag for $1000. I don’t think there are any poor ostrich farmers.
Ferg and Harry both had a ride on an ostrich and, not surprisingly, was the highlight of their day.

Along the way in this region you can smell Camphor Trees from time to time. Never smelt that in nature before – apart from in the pharmacy!

Over the mountains at 840m elevation, and down to the coast at Mossel Bay. We thought this would be a quiet little town, but it’s actually over 50,000 population. A huge sprawling city, with the obligatory “township” adjacent. Some cultures refer to these townships as slums, but they are really just a different standard of housing (that was an understatement) with increasing organisation of electricity supply and maybe one day sewerage too.

We drove east to a small area called Glentana, and stayed in a guest house right on the beach and fell asleep listening to the Indian Ocean pound the shore line.

Harry having a ride on an ostrich.

Beach at Glentana – very similar to Johanna or Station Beach down in the Otways

Ferg, Harry and John started today with a 3km run to a really cool playground next to the funky stadium they built for the soccer world champs. It has climbing stuff, ropes activities and spinning thing…..all for 7-16 year olds. A run home and a big breakfast before hitting the road for Oudtshoorn – about 500km – east along the Garden Route. The landscape varied from rolling green hillsides as far as you can see, reminding us of mid north South Australia, to craggy treeless peaks just like the Pyrnees or even New Zealand. Then it became dry and scrubby, and we were convinced we could be in the Australian outback with red dirt that could have put us in the beautiful Red Centre.
We are staying on a guest farm just out of town, and have enjoyed a delicious dinner of medium rare ostrich. The boys loved it too!
John has Man Flu (read – just a cold) and is only just coping with being away from home for the Tour de France coverage. It’s hard to see it live when we’re out and about all day! Needless to say, it’s the first thing checked (before email) when we get Internet connections. Although it might just slip down the list when we get to Jeffries Bay and he wants to see what the surf is like.

Baboons are everywhere:

and can be dangerous. We saw them down near the Cape, and today on a spectacular mountain pass on the way to Barrymore. They just hang about by the road side. Far more intelligent than, say, our kangaroos though. The baboons move out the way of the cars!