Friday 29th March 2013

L: Good Friday -Somehow, even when on holiday, something always seems to wake you up……This morning, it was our closest neighbours, who had set the alarm for 5.30am so that they could get an early start to go back down to Augrabies!!  (They then proceeded to ignore it, got up at 7am and took 2 hours to pack before leaving at, only, 9am….

But, I was awake and then Steve was woken by the barking dogs from further in the campsite.  I dozed and then, realised, that it was time to catch my sunrise. 

That was a real treat, besides the beautiful views, I managed to catch two birds posing in a tree in front of the open marshlands, with the most amazing sunrise as their backdrop.  There were two huge cows still sleeping in the foreground too.  There were so many birds around, that I really enjoyed my early morning walkabout.

We had cereal and coffee for breakfast and only took half an hour to get on the road.  We started off towards Witbank on the Namaqua Trail. S:  The directions which we took off the internet, fell apart just before Witbank as the right turn that we were supposed to take, stopped at a fence!!  So we had to go straight through to Witbank, instead.

Seeing as we missed the ruins which were on the section of the trail that was closed off, I decided it was a good idea to find the ruins, along another track.  Eventually (L:  after 2 extra hours) we found them!!  A bit of a let down.  (L:  That is an understatement – it was a pile of 2 or 3 rocks…..!!) 

So, we headed back to Witbank and continued on the trail.  Most of the route after this was following the Orange (Gariep) River, westwards towards our overnight stop which is called Melkhoutboom (Milk wood tree). 

It is on the banks of the Gariep River and is a huge tree which seems to have withstood many a flood.  We arrived, eventually, at 2pm and after a hike over the river rocks, we were able to swim in the lovely cool river after the heat of the day, and the partially working air-con.

We wallowed for quite a time and chatted to our neighbours from the Melkhoutboom, who had also been at the  campsite last night.

It is night time now and the stars have been terrific, as it is so dark here.  We had a good braai and so it is off to bed as it has been a long day.

L:  We have kept up to date with our writing of the blog, but due to there being no signal along this stretch, we have not been able to post it, so it will be a bit of a catch-up for those of you who are following our posts.