July 28 & 29th On the move driving through the great Karoo.

After a good breakfast, we start our drive north to our destination for the first night, Graaf Reinet - a small farming and tourist town in the Karoo.

Graaf Rienet Church modelled on Salisbury Cathedral

Stayed at a great hotel, Drostdy Hof, and had a great dinner. Lamb chops for me - Karoo Lamb is more flavourful than Aussie lamb (maybe a few months older when slaughtered).

Drosdy Hoff hotel ,over 150 years old The stables turned into rooms ..note the watering trough on the right

The drive to G.R. was boring except for the flowering aloe.

Fields of Aloes in the Karoo

Nature does have a way of brightening up the world

The next day after a lovely breakfast (Zoe had Boebotie mince on toast... delicious), we headed for Uppington on the Orange River. We were interested to find lots of farmland irrigated from the Orange River and large birds nests on the telephone poles.

Each nest can house up to 200 birds

Finally found the guest house we had booked (the street numbers were in no particular order - number 4 was next to 39). Our guest house had high security fence and the phone number we were given wasn't answered. After a long drive I was tired and irate. I shouted over the fence 5 or 6 times, and eventually a little 84 year old french woman opened up and let us in.

She had decided to retire in South Africa and opened this guest house 15 years before - we got the whole story at breakfast the next day... and realised she was hard of hearing!!!