We have kept in touch with Jacques who originally sold Woody Trinity, The Honda Transalp that we have in South Africa. He was very sad to give up the bike but at the time his wife had just become pregnant and they needed the cash freed up. We generally meet up once a year when we're over if possible as he was working very hard especially with the water shortage and he being in a business that supplies water drinks machines (or something like that). He missed his bike so much that his prayer group got together secretly and saved up and bought him a bike so in more recent visits we have met up for rides together, often with other friends of his.
We were both invited on this ride but I chose not to go (and glad I didn't) as it ended up being 800 kilometres door to door and would've been extremely uncomfortable on the back. The first pic shows the planned route and was supposed to cover 12 mountain passes but Woody thinks that the plan had evolved since the printing of the t-shirt and that they did at least one extra pass and clearly 200 extra kilometres!
Woody is now the proud owner of the Old Timer's 12 Passes T-shirt!
A few of the guys at Burgerspas - not a McDonald's in sight.
A line up of most of the bikes on the trip...
There are other photos but mostly of motorbikes and those who ride them and not scenic views! No time to stop for snaps!
Yep... just bikes and bikes....
and more bikes...
Papa and I went to Church in the morning and then in the afternoon I walked Harry Houdini round to neighbours for drinks on their stoep.
I saw these intriguing flowers on the cliff path. i've not seen them before so it's likely they only show themselves after rain... of which they've had not much by English standards but a lot by South African ones.
Monday's supper was a nice sushi started at Lemonlicious (previously LemonButta) and then cooked fish for mains. Photo shows a Rock Shandy (best summer drink ever) and the view round Walker Bay towards Gaansbaai.
The problem in the UK is that to reduce sugar in drinks even the full fat drinks now have reduced sugar and added sweeteners in so I haven't been able to find a clear lemonade that does not have nasty chemical sweeteners in.
Tuesday found us walking the dog along the cliff path - I don't tend to take many photos of this area now as we have shared the views many times before but for the first time we saw a crocodile...
Never smile at a crocodile...
Supper was a braai at home on the stoep. Harry clearly recognised the sight and smell and was waiting for goodies to emerge.
As the sun set we were treated to lovely colours towards Hermanus and Venus above the horizon. I uses an app to identify it which tells you planets, stars, and the constellations.
The black circle is the moon which was a tiny crescent in real life.
On Wednesday Woody and I went to Bredasdorp to the Kapula shop which is more like a warehouse. It's absolutely huge and full of candles and ceramics which is a business which also helps local women gain an income.
In the evening we went to The Barefoot Cook. We met friends there. Nigel had met a very interesting english gentleman through Church called David who sadly very recently died but we have kept in touch with Sam his daughter and her husband and their daughter Charlie. Whilst there was a bit of a wait for the food to come we enjoyed the company and the wine!
I settled on confit of duck which was extremely flavoursome and a chocolate sponge dessert ( I dispute any dessert without layers is a Mississippi Mud Pie) and Woody had the line fish and Tarte Tatin for his dessert.
On Thursday we went to Volmoed for their weekly Eucharist. It was led by the Benedictine brothers who have fairly recently moved there and I had not met them before this.
Whilst it was cloudy I appreciated the chance to cool off and whilst you can't clearly see the mountains behind it is still a beautiful spot and where Mama had her ashes scattered.
After giving a friend The Book of Bunny Suicides (funnily enough not heard from them since) we got home in time to whip up a typically English bbq. English in that it was raining. We still managed drinks on the stoep as it wasn't cold but did eat inside. 
In the afternoon Woody and I went into town for a spot of shopping....
It really does rain here too!
We found an Alley that had small bars in it selling all kinds of international street foods - no space after our lunch but interesting to explore on another day...
We enjoyed this lovely mural and came home to find that someone had put themselves to bed...
Yup, another day another walk on the cliff path...
Harry really does enjoy sniffing... walks tend to be on the slow side with him until the return journey when he is happy to walk without revisiting the sniffs that so detained him on the outward journey.
We have been to Pringle Bay to visit Julia and Granny. Granny is Julia's mother-in-law and we call her Granny because she looks very like Woody's maternal grandmother so she has been adopted as an honorary Granny. We still keep in touch and went round for a stunning Ox Tail Stew and sweet potato mash (normal potatoes specially cooked for Nigel) and then lemon meringue pie.
The house is decorated with a wide variety of warthogs and this little fellow is one of my favourites.
Julia, Woody and I am Harry and Jo the doggies had a nice beach walk after lunch whilst the other 2 chatted or napped til our return. No photos sadly as I didn't take my phone. Suffice to say it is beautiful but windy.
And last but not least a candlelit supper as we have been experiencing "load shedding" where they have cut off electricity for about 2 hours a day to take the load off the supply so that everyone can have electricity for some of the day.
No comments:
Post a Comment