The Swartberg experience

Today it was the Swartberg experience and aptly named it is for 8 f us and the hospital for David and Dick. David as the patient and Dick as the nurse/taxi/carer. Poor David was diagnosed with Gastro, alokg with about 2000 other people in the wider Montagu to Oudtshoorn area. He is now on the mend, which is good news. Dick has caught up with reading and other stuff, not sure what that all involves and he did the washing!!!!

We set off just after 9 with Jan Bester on the trip that would take us up and over the Swartberg and back through the mountain. Jan is so good and passionate about the World Heritage site and he shares just enough information to keep you interested. He shares history, plant knowledge, geological information all in little doses that settles somewhere in an over 60 brain, hopefully!!

The Swartberg mountains are like any other mountains,. They are big and awe inspiring and not to be messed with. The pass than runs over the top of the mountain was build in the 1880's by the master pass builder in S.A. in the late 18 hunderds, Thomas Bain and it took about 6 years, or there abouts. It has the most intricate dry stonewalling, which was built by hand after the local rock was "gun powdered" to break it and then chiseled and packed with no mortar on any other bonding material. Fancy that  and other than the bits washed away with the occasional flash flood, it is still all in place. Surely beats modern technology! It is a gravel road and since it is a World Heritage site it will always remain as such.

We saw Orange breasted Sunbirds, many protea species, fynbos and 2 Grey Reebuck along the way. After we had stopped at the "tea" stop we also saw 2 hiking Germans on the pass. This was a rare spotting as hiking is not     really allowed on the pass or in the mountains at the moment. Jan told us that the hiking trials should be opened again in March this year. It is an awesome place to hike in, tough and beautiful and challenging at best. The German couple was travelling through S.A.on foot, by public transport, bumming lifts and any other available manner. Surprising to me. They cannot drive and this is the  way they travel and in fact the 3rd time in S.A. I can hardly imagine travelling over the Swartberg and into the Hell without your own transport. well as they say, different strokes for different folks. Anyway we all agreed that it was ok to give them a lift into Prince Albert where we were heading for lunch..

Lunch was a splendid affair at the Prince Albert Country store where Colleen served us the slow roasted lamb, with oven roasted veggies, garden salad(out of her own garden) and home baked bread, all to be washed down with the local Bergwater wine. Life just gets better every day and the best part is, when it is all over, there is no back to work on Monday!!!!

The trip home through the Meiringspoort was low key, due to the heat, or the wine and the food. That is also a lovely trip following the flow of the river that consists of  about 24 crossings over the drifts, all with names relating to some incident that took place, like Gun powder drift, Wild horses drift and many others.

I just love this part of the world.