Breakfast on the verandah included the usual (now we’re getting blasé!) fresh fruit salad, cold meats and cheese, muffins, cereals plus ostrich sausages as part of the ‘fry-up’.
Chatted to Bob and Libby who are also S.Africa ‘virgins’ and are doing similar tour. He’s ‘in underwear’ (always gets a smile apparently) and travels extensively to Sri Lanka where he has a factory producing for one of his labels – the Fantasy brand (remember Ronnie’s Sex shop?)– which I had recently chosen in John Lewis.
Then onto the Swartenberg Pass for the ‘must-do’ drive towards Prince Albert. Tom-Tom wouldn’t believe we really wanted to go on this untarmac-ed road for nearly 40 kilometres through stunning rocky formations with fantastic views of the valley, so we had to ask for the bike route and then he obliged. There was actually a bike race going over the pass and they were going a lot faster than us. Tortuous bends and not many passing places – so a challenging drive. We arrived at De Top at the same time as a group of S African blokes we’d kept meeting at photo-stop places, one of whom showed me his watch – it was noon – so….?? No he was showing me his altimeter on his watch which informed us we were 1552meters above sea level.
Then down to Prince Albert and bliss…end of the vibrating road. A very welcome beer and open sandwiches before heading back the long way round on ‘normal’ roads.
The Safari Ostrich Farm was a relaxing and fascinating tour of these flightless birds and their habits. Did you know you can stand on ostrich eggs providing you weigh less than 120kg, so John tested that theory happily, but declined the offer to race one as you mustn’t weigh more than 75kg.
The ostrich feathers and skins are very expensive so we resisted the temptations in the shop. A feather duster was about £15 and a small purse about £40. Our host Paula had been wearing a very elegant ostrich skin lime green skirt this morning – goodness knows what that set her back.
One comment on the overall trip so far is that it’s so peaceful – we’ve not met any great crowds apart from at Cape Point and even then it wasn’t heaving. Prince Albert, although quite a sizeable town for this area was sleepy and very few people about.
Ate at De Zeekoe again – butternut squash soup, tender lamb fillet, springbok pie, assorted veg, apple pie and cinnamon ice cream.