river camping, wyn tasting (bonnievale, south africa)

Jim and I had another stellar weekend, this time in Bonnievale, one of the small towns in the Robertson valley about two and a half hours outside of Cape Town. The valley is full of wine and citrus farms, and ringed with a few pretty mountain ranges, including the Langeberg. We drove up Friday afternoon, and after fighting traffic, battling with wind to set up a tent, and a slow start to our fire-building, we really felt we deserved a drink!

We enjoyed wine tasting on Saturday at some beautiful family-run wine farms, including one that has been making incredible chardonnays since the 17th century. We also got to make our own bubbly! "Methode Cap Classique," or MCC, is the regional term South African winemakers have come up with to identify bottle-fermented sparkling wine made in South Africa - what "champagne" is to the Champagne region of france, "Methode Cap Classique" is to South African wine makers. At one winery, we got to finish the last step of a bottle of MCC: pop off the cap top which has sealed the second fermentation, watch the frozen tip of the bottle fly out, put in some sugar to help the final fermentation (and give it more bubbles), cork it, and package it. Very fun! We also managed to swim a couple of times during the hot day.

Sunday morning we went for a beautiful hike. We got a late start, so I was a little cranky out in the hot sun, but Jim enjoyed looking at some unique geological features - an inclusion from a partial volcanic eruption, and quartzite and sandstone in the rocks. The views were pretty too.

We camped here, next to the river. A beautiful peaceful setting complete with rope swings for getting in the water!

De Wetshof winery, a family-owned vineyard that has been making wine since the 17th century. There were cannons on either side of this building, modeled after designs by Thiebault (a famous French architect who built the family's Cape Town house), from we guessed the 18th century. They looked well-used too!

The winemaker, Philip Jonker, models how they get yeast sediment out of fermenting sparkling wine. Turn the bottles slowly (over months) a little at a time, until the sediment collects in the cap. Then put the bottle upside-down in a chemical solution that freezes the liquid. Then....

rock pools at beaverlac (porterville, south africa)

Last weekend, we headed up camping to a place called Beaverlac. This citrus-farm-turned-campsite had stunning scenery and really beautiful rock pools for swimming. It happened to be ridiculously hot all weekend, so we swam a lot, sweated a lot, ate a lot, and sat in the shade with cold beers.

We went with our friends Candida and Euen (Candida teaches 5th grade at Jim's school), Patrick (who teaches 4th grade), and Candida's friends, Tracey and Lewellen. Tracey and Lewellen are Afrikaaners, and they taught us a thing or two about braiing and making potjie (pronounced "por-ki-ey," sort of) - a delicious lamb stew. We each were asked to bring up some wood for making fires to cook over - but not just any wood. Candida wrote to us: "If each of you can try to bring chairs and a bag of wood...but wood has to be rooikrans or kameldooring (or something like that) as Afrikaaners are very particular about their braaing wood and Euan and I have brought a fire starter pack once which did not go down well!"

The rooikrans I bought at the local supermarket, unfortunately, was wet and Jim spent a hot hour trying to get a fire going with it. We'll do better next time!

Fields along the road.

Sunset as we drive up the mountain pass to get to the campsite.

Jim slaves over a hot fire to cook our morning bacon!

Looking out over the valley and citrus groves on our way to a rock pool.

suikerbossie circuit hike (cape town)

A few weeks ago, we took advantage of a beautiful day and hiked up to Jonas Peak. The route ran along a trail just above some non-native pines to beautiful views over Hout Bay. Then it turned up a deep kloof (ravine) covered with native yellowood trees, which we climbed up for about an hour over giant boulders and even up a small waterfall. The trees were beautiful, and the ravine narrowed as we got closer to the top with steep rock walls on either side.

We popped out on top of the ravine at a grassy saddle with a few marshy areas to walk through. We walked across the top toward the Twelve Apostles and an overlook of Camp's Bay, and then turned south to walk along the mountain's edge and look down at Londudno, another beach which we were directly above. We took a short detour to peak Jonas Peak for 360 degree views of the ocean, the bays, and the mountains. Then we started to descend through an incredibly steep ravine on the ocean-side with beautiful views of the water the whole way down. The trail was crafty and in great shape, so it made quick work of what looked, at first glance, like a challenging route.

I now enjoy pointing out the kloofs we climbed every time we drive past on our way to Hout Bay or the beach!

Camps Bay, Clifton, and Lion's Head.

Landudno below us.

family vacation (cape town)

Just after returning from Namibia, the Petoskey's descended on Cape Town for a visit! We had an awesome two weeks with Betsy, Bill, Cassie & Craig, complete with beaches, wine tastings, lots of card-playing, and a few big seafood meals.

Here are a few photos that I took during the visit.

Our makeshift Christmas tree!

Wine tasting at Groot Constantia

Day at the beach: preparing to bury Cassie.

Looking good!

We took the crew to a Saturday market and ate yummy food; this was a giant batch of paella (it was delicious).

More wine tasting at Eagle's Nest.

day 9 & 10: sossusvlei and christmas day (namibia)

We spent two nights at Sesriem, and drove into Sossussvlei both mornings. The first morning, we slept in (until about 6:45am, when the sun was already hitting the tent), made coffee, and moseyed out to Sossussvlei to explore. We climbed the dune above Dead Vlei, a famous dry pan with dead trees scattered throughout that make for unique pictures. While we were there, we spotted a group climbing "Big Daddy," the tallest dune around the vlei. We decided that we'd better try to peak it during our sunrise walk the next day.

So, on Christmas morning, we woke up around 4:45, packed up camp in ten minutes, and drove over to the gate. We were the first ones out into the park when the gates opened at 5am, and we cruised out in the dark watching the stars slowly disappear and the dark outline of the dunes appear on the horizon as the sky got lighter. We parked the car an hour later, and jogged across another pan to start our climb. We huffed and puffed as quick as we could to get up to a point high enough to watch the sun rise. After resting and watching for a while, I convinced Jim to stick with our climb (we were getting tired with no one else on the dune to make tracks for us to walk in!) and we made it to the top of Big Daddy before running back down. (To get yourself off that sand dune you've worked so hard to climb, you just point your feet toward the bottom and start running! A scary feeling when it is really steep, but the sand is deep and soft and slows you down).

We have two videos from Christmas morning on YouTube: Climbing Up and Running Down.

We got a late start this morning, and it was hot, hot, hot for our climb up the dune above Dead Vlei.

Dead Vlei.

Sweating in the sun.

Just hanging around! It was really hot out, ok? We were acting a little silly.

Pool-side in the shade later on Christmas Eve. It was all we could do to keep cool.

Hurrying to the dunes on Christmas morning!

Starting the long, slow climb.

Sun is getting closer....

day 9: desert in the rain, naukluft to sesriem (namibia)

We left our beautiful private campsite in the desert to head to one of the most popular sites in Namibia: the sand dunes at Sossussvlei. It was a rainy day, which meant the temperatures were cooler and the grazing animals - oryx, springbok, wildebeest and red hartebeest - were out nearly all day.

After a few stops to take pictures and hang out with oryx and springbok on the side of the road (there are extensive fences along every major road in Namibia, but animals seemed to get past them pretty often), we arrived in Sesriem, the campsite nearest to Sossussvlei. Sesriem is the gateway to a long, narrow valley that transitions from rocky hills and grassland to the start of the amazing sand dunes of the Namib desert. At the end of the valley, 60km down a paved road and another 4km down a sand road, lies Sossussvlei. "Sossuss" means "the place where water gathers" in Nama, the primary local language of this region of Namibia, and "vlei" means "valley" in Afrikaans. So "Sossussvlei" is literally, "valley valley." We didn't make it all the way there on this day, but did climb our first dune (Dune 45, at Kilometer 45 from the campsite) and watched the sunset. This made for a few good pictures, but a harrowing drive back in the dark, racing to beat the gate (which closes an hour after sunset).

One oryx is outside the fence and the others are inside. He held his ground until we got too close, then turned and ran off, then realized he was limited by the fence, and turned and ran back at us. A lot of the oryx we saw did the "bluff" behavior, holding their ground until they realized how big our truck was.

Looking back over the Naukluft Mountains.

Now we're in the park, and the fences are gone. It had finished raining shortly before we headed out on this drive.

We liked this guy :)

The sand dunes are starting just to the right.

day 7 and 8: hiking the naukluft mountains

These days were really amazing. We got back into some territory in the Naukluft Mountains that people don't spend a lot of time in, especially during the hot summers. We took a 17-km hike one day, and an 11km hike the next, that ran in circuits along riverbeds dotted with pools and waterfalls, gradually drying out into deep canyons, and finally climbing up onto plateaus with amazing views over the desert.

We spotted a beautiful group of Hartmann's Mountain Zebra, a giant male kudu with a beautiful set of gently curling antlers, springbok, and leopard prints (and kills!). We walked through a troupe of about 60 baboons, and watched swallows build their nests.

We got incredibly lucky with the weather: spotty rainshowers meant cloudy skies, which made for much cooler hiking weather than normal. Even with the cooler temperatures we were exhausted after our two day hikes. These pictures don't really go in order, but they do give you an idea of what the park was like. Notice that there are no other people in the pictures!

Starting our first day hike, we had sunshine and beautiful views as we climbed up above the river bed. We may have actually been lost at this point - we made a few wrong turns due to the well-beaten game trails crossing over and running alongside the path, extending our hike an extra kilometer or so :)

The riverbed in early morning.

We were lucky to see a few rare desert blooms!

A view from early in our hike on day 2: this walk started with a quick ascent, so we had views within minutes of starting.

It was stunning to watch the sun and shadows skirt across the hills.

Jim at the plateau!

day 6: coast to the naukluft mountains (namibia)

After the seal colony, Jim and I spent a pleasant afternoon drinking beer at the German-style beer house in Swakopmund. The coastal town sort of hams up its colonial roots, but it was fun to wander the little European-inspired town center. And what a respite from the heat! After nearly 100-degree days, it was barely 70 next to the water in Swakopmund.

The next day, we had a nice cafe breakfast and then set off back into the desert. Most of the day was spent in the car, but the views were beautiful. We were lucky to go into this part of Namibia during the rainy season: we watched storm clouds skirt across the horizon, dropping rain in huge grey columns onto the dusty earth. We saw a big lightning storm the next day, which made us both grateful to be car camping.

One of the beach towns as seen from the salt road along the coast. All of the buildings have containers to hold water. Water is definitely always a concern in Namibia.

After a pretty dull hour or so through flat, empty sand, we started to head south toward the Naukluft Mountains, and the landscape started to get a little more interesting. The clouds studding the sky made for beautiful shadows.

One of maybe ten cars we saw in our six hours of driving that day.

These are Quiver Trees. The early inhabitants of Namibia, the San "bushmen", used the hollow branches of these trees as quivers to hold their arrows.