Monday 25th March 2013

L:  Well.  Holiday time is finally here. 

The packing seemed to go so well, so either we are getting good at this or……..now here is the worrying part,….maybe, we are leaving a lot of what we need, behind.

So, we were up at 5am and ready to go at 6.15am as Steve decided it was best to go with him to work, as he was handing over standby, but taking the day off so we could start earlier.

We had decided not to delay with breakfast at home so by the time we got on the road and had a quick stop for breakfast, (at the Engen 1 Stop, Wimpy on N7) it was 10.30am so we were starving as we had been up and about for over 5 hours. S: Chatted to an Australian couple who had come over to do an overland trip from Cape Town to Nairobi. The reason I started a conversation was that I thought the vehicle registration was British and I was curious as to what route they had taken to South Africa if that was the case. Turned out to be Kenyan registered.

L: We left there to drive on through to Vanrhynsdorp, past Clanwilliam dam – which is really empty. 

The view was lovely, although no flowers at this time of the year.  There were loads of trucks on the road, and of course, the ever-growing, road-works.

I started to get very hot, and sunburnt as we were reaching 40+ degrees. S: Sitting on the right side of the cab has its advantages.

On the way through, Nicole (our eldest daughter) was booking accommodation through her company, SafariNow for us, which was really convenient. 

We have not really done many bookings as we wanted to be fairly spontaneous, but obviously we need to book certain times, especially over Easter weekend and on the Namaqua trails……

We reached Vanrhynsdorp at about 3pm and were really hot, but the places we tried for accommodation, were full.  We decided to see about the hotel – Namaqualand Country Lodge, which we settled on.  It was a bit more expensive than we are used to, but oh so lovely, to have air-con, en-suite, pool and restaurant etc, oh and secure parking.

When we hit the room, we both had a lovely afternoon nap and I only woke Steve up as supper was 7 – 8pm and didn’t want us to miss it. 

I had been taking sunset photos for 20 minutes by then and what a treat that was.

We had supper next to the lodge pool in the balmy evening air.  Supper was very good too.

I suggested that we go for an evening stroll, and to walk off the pudding.  That turned out to have been a great idea.  We strolled up to the church and took amazing photos of the church steeple with the moon and trees around it. 

Also, found a little old shop with an old wreck of an Austin motor car outside. 

On our way back to the lodge, we popped in to the church grounds to see the Wall of Remembrance, and got such a fright when the church bells pealed nine times for nine o’clock.

Back to our lovely air-conditioned room.  What a great start to a holiday full of promise.