Oudtshoorn

A lovely long drive to Oudtshoorn & Erin studying on the road... just like we planned and all went well.

The scenery was breathtaking all the way but when we reached the mountain range - oh wow.


Just before we got to Oudtshoorn, the silence spoke volumes as to how we were feeling surrounded by the magnificent mountain range.

 Incredible to say the least...

We stayed at a municipal park which turned out to be really nice, surprisingly so as municiple parks are seriously not the greatest.

This place was so far off the internet grid we did not even have cellphone coverage. It gives new meaning to isolation less than 10km from town!

There was a beautiful dam up in the mountains but unfortunately our entry was restricted and only open to municipality - it figures...  It was nice to see bus loads of children regularly being brought for outings and wonderful to see how well behaved they were.

It was rather odd though that there was no 'wildlife' hanging around besides our cats, so we spent a day at their local Wildlife Ranch.

Not much to look at when you first arrive but as we went on the tour with the guide our disappointment changed to enjoyment.

We learned quite a lot about their recovery programmes for injured and abandoned animals and had an opportunity to either crocodile cage dive or spend some time with cheetahs or tigers.

Oh man! Erin was pleading to crocodile cage dive but both Andrew and I were a bit intimidated by the size of the 3 crocs on call... uh ah!

So the best we could offer her was a visit to the cubs.  In the end she settled for the cheetahs - which turned out to be such fun. They are so adorable, but one has to respect the fact that they are wild animals. 

We had an awesome day but were exhausted at the end of it and were only too happy to trek back to our 'home'.

After some hectic studying I rewarded Erin with a trip to the cango caves and we did the full tour... LOL it was hectic crawling through those tight spots!

I would have never believed I could get my ass through there had it not been for the large dude that was on the same tour - I had to see him crawl through the tunnel before I went.

As we were inching our way through the 'tunnel of love' Erin pipes up what a big mistake it would be if someone were to fart! LOL that cracked me up.

The structures in the cave looked as if they were pictures out of a fantasy novel, like Lord of the Rings, absolutely incredible how the rocks formed over thousands of years. Imagine being the first person to find the cave...

On our last day in Oudsthoorn Erin and I decided to visit the ostrich farm for a quick tour. I was 'hugged' by one of the ostriches but she was too quick for the kodak moment and we met a 'dwarf' ostrich - short and all!

 I finally gave in and bought Erin an ostrich egg, much to her delight and even picked up a couple of bottles of wine. Nice!

All too quickly our time in Oudsthoorn had come to an end and we had to start packing up for our visit to Hanli enroute to Cape Town... exam time looming again.