Meerkats & Caves

Well today is the day we have been so excited about.  We are up nice & early to pitch our chairs at the burrows of the very cute inquisitive meerkats.  We were given lovely hot chocolate & homemade biscuits to keep us going & then we picked up our chair & blanket & hiked down to the burrow.  We had a great guide who told us lots of interesting facts about the meerkats.  They had spent the last year observing them & bringing their chairs closer & closer & closer so the meerkats wouldn't get spooked.  They don't feed them or interfere in any way, they just sit & observe them for research.  The meerkats have a number of burrows so every evening they need to keep watch which one they are using that night so visitors are not disappointed.

We only had to wait for 20 minutes for the first meerkat to come out.  He stood proud with his tummy to the sun to warm himself up.  They will not come out of their burrows unless the sun is out & creating warmth. Then another and another and another until all six were out warming themselves up for the day.  Once they had warmed up they had a little play and headed off to do some foraging for some bugs & beasties!! It was a fantastic experience, they were so cute and entertaining and our guide was very informative.  

        

                 Hi Ho!!!!

       

             It really was freezing!!!!!

       Little bit of sunbathing & overseeing their land. 

            

If you look really close you can find them.  Their camouflage is fantastic & our phone camera doesn't do them justice!!!

                                  

Cango Caves

Cango caves are at the foothills of the Swartberg Range near Oudsthoorn.  They are Africa's oldest tourist attraction.  There was evidence of the indigenous people having taken shelter here thousands of years ago.  Some of the limestone features are said to be 45,000 million years old. The extended tunnels go on for over 4km with many caves still being discovered to this day.  Only one quarter is opened to the public and only with a guide.  

There are two main tours available.  The Heritage Tour which is a duration of 60 minutes is an easy walk with levelled surfaces but many steps. The Adventure Tour which is a 90 minute tour takes you up steep steps, small crevices and through many small spaces, the smallest being called 'The Postbox', a tight squeeze at 30cm tall.  They had a lady a few years ago who was adimant she would fit but she got stuck and was lodged there for 12 hours.  The unfortunate thing was all the other guests were on the other side of the gap which meant they were all stuck for 12 hours too!!  They finally got her out by cutting her clothes and applying lots & lots of grease!!!! 

The formations are amazing, I'm sure everyone who enters is in awe of these spectacles.  They use subtle lighting to enhance the structures and the guide is very informative.  They are in the process of implementing a new tour which will be based on proper caving where the only light is the one on your head, for the more experienced caver I think! 

     

             

       

                                 

        

Eden District Municipality

Our last day with Eugene & were heading back to Cape Town with a nine hour drive via the beautiful Wilderness, Victoria Bay & Mosselbay, although we are breaking up our journey with a game drive in the private estate of Botlierskop.  This was Josh's first game drive so he was very excited.  We had a three hour drive through the vast estate and found many animals on the way.  We then enjoyed our very last lunch with Eugene at the lodge & headed off for the last four hours of the journey back to Cape Town. It was an amazing eight days of fun with Eugene, the weather was very good to us with only one rainy day.  This area of the South Africa is beautiful from the coastal towns to the drive through the hills.  We can't quite believe we haven't ever been before but we will definitly be back. 

           

         

           

         

                    

         

           

        

Beautiful sunset to complete our eight day extravaganza and a farewell to Eugene.

A farewell to Table Mountain also but we will be back in a couple of weeks when we will hopefully make it to the top! 

Franschhoek, Stellenbosch & Oudsthorn

Today is vineyard tour day.  10am start at the tasting table of Paarl Vineyard.  Josh was distracted by Eugine at the cheese tasting table.  He wasn't brave enough o try the smelly one!!!

             

     The lady kindly gave Josh some special juice in a wine glass so he didn't feel left out!!

    Cellar tour in Stellenbosch.  I'm sure wine making is in the school curriculum?!

          

                      And more tasting!!!!

              

             

         

This vineyard uses ducks as its natural pesticides for the vines.  There are over 1,070 Runner Ducks live here. They head out in the morning and enjoy a day of eating slugs & the like & then head home at 3.30pm for a well earned rest.  We were there in time to watch then coming in, it really was a great sight of waddling & quacking.  They were very regimental and waddled in one big group home for the, night. 

           

Ostrich Day!!! 

Out and about in Ostrich land.  Ostrich farming is huge in this area with fields and fields full of them.  We had a tour around an Ostrich farm where the lady showed us the hatchery, we were permitted to hold an egg with an embryo still inside, it was very heavy.  

The mother lays her eggs one at a time into the nest the father has prepared for her,  she will not sit on her eggs until she has laid them all which could take up to 12 days.  She will then sit on the eggs in the daytime as her feathers are brown & she is camouflaged from predators.  The father then takes over for night duty as his feathers are black, he does have beautifully white feathers which he camouflages with sand before taking up his post.  

We were shown all the different shades & textures of feathers with the male having the most beautiful whitest & softest.  We were also given a demonstration of feather dusters being made.  We were then taken out to meet these fascinating birds, Josh got to stand on an egg as they we super strong & we all got to feed them some corn.  

                         

            

Then it was time for sitting on or riding an ostrich & Josh jumped at the chance to go for a ride!  It was hilarious to watch, he was a bit shocked at first as the bird just took off but thankfully one of the trainers somehow kept a hold of him and once he got going he loved it!   

                 

Just to finish off our oscrich day we had oscrich steak for dinner.  It was very tasty and very much like steak not chicken as one may think coming from a bird!!  It may have been cooked on the BBQ but we certainly weren't eating it outdoors as the temperature dropped greatly & it was freezing!!! By the log fire it was!!!