Aboard Dignity (Lagoon 420) Blog

After a hearty breakfast we were soon off on the near three hour trip to Swellendam through fantastic scenery and mountain passes. This part of South Africa is turning out to be very picturesque and the towns immaculate. Even small towns like Barrydale which we reluctantly drove by made us feel we could have stopped there for at least a day.

Swellendam, the third town populated by Europeans in South Africa, is more of the same. We pulled into our lodging, the Old Thatch Lodge, and soon met the owner. We learned our room had been booked by the folks who’d been there the night before and that we’d be bumped to the honeymoon suite. She also suggested a few things to do in town and soon we were off.

We first visited the Sulina Faerie Sanctuary. This sort of thing is not our normal port of call but we’re trying out different things. Young girls (and some boys) would would be enchanted here. The adult perspective, we understand, is that the lady of the house, a couple of decades ago, started seeing / hearing from the faeries around her. She started making porcelain figures of them and planting them around the garden. This obsession turned into an attraction and now a museum and shop, the profits of which all go to charity. So we understand.

Next stop was a light lunch at Pennantwing where we both had the most delicious apple strudles.

Then we were off to the Drostdy Museum which portrayed a little of the history of the town. This is all very much original Dutch territory so a lot of the history is told from their perspective which makes it all the more interesting.

With our minds full of wonder we picked up some food for the evening and settled in for the rest of the afternoon / evening. The common area for the lodge has a real fire which the owner sets and we light if we want. Helen and I feasted on Brie and Salmon rolls accompanied by some Calitzdorp red plonk in front of a nice fire watching an old TV show on the laptop. A different type of heaven to what we’ve been used to over the last few years but a wonderful way to spend the evening nonetheless.

We’ve spent the last two nights in Oudtshoorn in a delightful place called the Surval Boutique Olive Estate.

We drove up from Plettenberg Bay, stopped for lunch in town, still arriving early for check in. The staff were good enough to take our weighty luggage and store it so we could play the tourist without fear of theft. We decided to head for the hills, specifically the Cango Caves. These are another set of limestone caves carved out over millions of years and now turned into a visitor attraction.

With a choice of a Standard Tour or an Adventure Tour we couldn’t resist the latter. After enough time to see a short movie of the area and look at the small museum we were collected by our charming (read ‘extremely camp’) guide. He was hilarious. He took our party deep into the cave system. The two tours start the same but the Adventure Tour gets an extra bit. That extra bit involves four ‘tunnels’ to negotiate, six if you count coming back through the first two.

The first (and last) were a very low squeeze which we had to negotiate in the cossack dance position. Being Africa we were provide no helmets as we would have done just about anywhere else. I guess the idea is is that if you bump your head it’s going to hurt so don’t. This section really tested our knees and I now believe I need new ones. For some odd reason this section was called the Tunnel of Love. On the website they still refer to this section as Lumbago Alley which is far more appropriate. Just not a tourist puller.

The next tunnel was called The Coffin as it was so low we had to give up all pretense of being on our feet and wiggle through on on our bellies at times.

And then it got worse as we had to wriggle UP the Devil’s Chimney. This required both arm and leg strength and a complete lack of claustrophobia. This tested my recovering fitness to the limit. At one point I thought I couldn’t make it but I didn’t give up. By now many of our party had given up and gone back, perhaps put off by turnarounds from the previous party. This gave the guides some challenges as they had to deal with folks heading off in different directions. I presume they are used this this chaos.

After the Devil’s Chimney we had to negotiate the Post Box. This was a belly crawl followed by a roll onto our backs and a slide through the lowest opening yet. With the guide now looking after our party’s turnarounds Helen and I had to negotiate this section without his instructions which made it a little more of a challenge.

We then had to get back through The Coffin and Lumbago Alley (Tunnel of Love remember). Then the long walk back through many, many steps and caves. We were exhausted by the end.

After returning to our accommodation we found ourselves pretty beat so after a rest we ate at the hotel restaurant, Su Casa.

Yesterday morning we visited the Safari Ostrich Show Farm. Here we were given a tour including a history of the farm and seeing a number of different breeds of ostriches. We learned that they really are bird brained, where each eyeball weighs 60g but their brain only weighs 40g. So they can see but they can’t remember what they see so they go around doing the same daft stuff all the time. Daft as they were, they still looked cute.

Towards the end of the tour we participated in a couple of ‘strength’ demonstrations. To demonstrate the strength of their eggshells, we were allowed to stand on some eggs. To demonstrate the strength of the birds, we were allowed to sit on one. All in the pics below.

We were lucky with the weather as it had rained all night and early morning. We took a gamble on the weather improving on the way to the ostrich farm and it did. The skies turned blue for us and the sun came out.

We headed back into town where a festival is running. It’s an Afrikaan Arts Festival which runs for about a week once per year. We had no idea this was on so we had a little walk around the town center and visited the CP Nel Museum in the center of town before returning to relax for the afternoon. We headed back into town in the early evening for a meal before returning to our room.

All in all it’s been a fun couple of days here in Oudtshoorn. Our aching bodies testify this.

Next stop Calitzdorp and port wine tasting.