Ouch, ouch, ouch… sore butt, from the horse riding, yesterday!

I think all the birds in the area decided to start calling, this morning, again at 3am – seems to be a theme here! By 6.30 I couldn’t take it anymore… decided to get up & soak up the view again… no clouds, but really windy, it was very impressive with the sun shining through, on to the different ranges.

We checked out and started to make our way to our next stop, Chrissiesmeer, which is located on Lake Chrissie, the largest fresh water pan (lake) in South Africa. We stopped in Volksrust for a few more supplies, then at Emerelo for fuel. You cannot pump your own fuel – there are attendants, and you are supposed to tip them. Our attendant was overly enthused that we were Australian. I don’t think many Aussies travel through this way.

The roads were good, but the scenery could have been anywhere on the southern tablelands of NSW, the only exciting thing we saw while driving was an Eagle flying overhead.

Passed through my birthplace, Newcastle, but on a different continent!

We are staying at Miss Chrissies – a bed & breakfast farm house, the owner – Peter, has the original deeds going back to 1877, which are proudly on display in the common lounge room.

The cottages are relatively new- being built from the old stones from a demolished dairy building. The property has an Oak forest, pond with ducks & cattle.

The temp started out as 30, but slowly made its way down to 21 – luckily we have, our one, jumper.

We went for a walk around the property, and in the oak forest found an animal burrow – Peter advised this was from a porcupine, unfortunately, they are mostly nocturnal so we haven’ t see one yet.

The sunset was a beautiful pink/ purple colour.

Our hosts cooked us a tradition meal they would usually eat. A venison stew with rice, my first and possibly last time eating bambi- the flavour is very strong. Brendan enjoyed it though, I had to add bits of fetta, tomato and onion from the salad to mask the flavour – I managed to get half down. Next was desert – a brandy pudding with brandy sauce and raisins, this was exceptional sweet – I am talking hair raisingly sweet… David managed most of his portion. I, once again, got maybe half- I hate cooked fruit in my food, picked out all the raisin bits, poor Brendan didn’t like this at all, but tried to get down a bit, it would take him a good two minuets to swallow a mouthful, then he would wash it down with a mouthful of water… he did try, it was entertaining to watch.

We were discussing the surprising lack of fruit in the shops when Peter said that you can only get it from specialty fruit & veg shops, not from the supermarkets. He then enthused about one of his favourite fruits, called “Sponsespec”, that he said we had to try. So, he bought out some, cut up, and it turned out to be rock melon