9/1/2016

Day 0

Let me start from the beginning. Saturday late afternoon I married my best friend, love of my life Kieron Thwaites. It was the most amazing day of my life! So technically my honeymoon started that evening. I knew where we were going on honeymoon, but I didn’t know the itinerary. So I first night on honeymoon was staying at the City Lodge (near Pinelands). He wanted to book the Vineyard but half of England was down in Cape Town for the South Africa vs England cricket tour. The City Lodge was really nice and fine with me. It was only for a night after all.

10/1/2016

Day 1

We left the City Lodge after breakfast around 10:00 am. We then fulled up with petrol and pick up some bottled water. We then took the drive to Springbok for the night. We are driving in my Nissan Micra (Ron’s car broke down a week before the wedding).

Day 4 19/1/2015

This morning we got up early (well the sun rises earlier than Cape Town) and packed up and headed off to the park. I was really excited since I have never been there before. Driving there I was amazing how many trees there were big and small. Everywhere is freeways. After a couple of hours and with a stop at Wimpy for lunch and a change of drivers we arrived at the park.

One of the many animals we saw during the first day. This included Rhino, giraffe and buffilo, etc. We arrived late into Hilltop Camp because of a certain buffilo who decided to take his time and wouldn’t get off the road.

Ellie

Rhinos

Hilltop Camp

16/1/2015

Day: 1

So our next adventure is KZN. The three of us left Cape Town just after 6:00 am. Our first desternation was Matjiesfontien for breakfast. Our next stop would be Colesberg for the night.

Block House

Matjiesfontein

The Ghost Tour

Kieron doing what he loves

29/6/2014

Day 9

Today has been raining and cold. It is meant to be summer in the Northern Hemisphere!

This morning once we had breakfast, we went into town to buy a few things for lunch and bought ice cream, which was amazing! Everyone had Creme (Vanilla) except for my mom but she stole some of mine anyway. Then we explored the town a bit more and then walked back up to the hotel before it began to rain. Once we got back to the hotel it was lunch time so we had our picnic lunch on my parents balcony. The rest of the afternoon we spend relaxing. The friends who are with us have friends who have a house in Austria. They coming down for the night, which is interesting. So we are going out for supper with them. Not sure if we will be eating bread and water if we are going to an expensive place.

Half way through the afternoon my sister and I got bored so with my parents we decided to go down into the town (alright it is a village not really a town) and find some hot chocolate. We found this coffee shop which sold the best Italian hot chocolate and had this amazing cheesecake. So we spend sometime there and watched the locals. We realised that we had an hour before we had to leave for dinner, so we quickly ran back up to our hotel in the rain. Our hotel was just outside of town and up a slight hill.

The streets

Sign outside a hotel

A 5 star hotel

Its actual size

27/6/2014

Day 7

This morning we left the hotel to drop off the car at the car hire and then they dropped off at the airport for our flight to Venice. Landing was interesting for two things I have never flown into Venice and secondly we happened to bump twice when trying to land. That was not a nice experience. After we got off the plane and collected our bags (which didn’t take long because the airport is small. We then went to hire two cars and the idiots who ran the place gave us the smaller car and we were four people.

We drove from Venice for hours and drove through mountain passes, forests and villages, which looked like something from Switzerland and Austria. It seemed like we where in the wrong country. These towns differently had Switzerland and Austrian influence.

After an extra half an hour on the road we finally found the hotel and it feels like I am in a ginger bread house. After a long day in the car we only felt like a toasted cheese for supper.

Here is to another couple of days of adventure in Italy.

River running through Cortina

The river is this photo looked exactly like this. It ran quite fast and looked very icy cold. I wouldn’t want to swim in that.

View from hotel

20/6/2014

Day 2

I landed at London, Heathrow just before 7:00 am, so of course we had breakfast at 5:30 am! Seriously airlines need to get their times sorted out when it comes to feeding their passengers. So we waited at Heathrow the whole morning and because of the time change it felt longer this is because England is an hour behind South Africa. Seriously Lara and I walked around nearly the whole airport to try and find free WiFi (also because we were very bored), which we eventually did. At last I managed to communicate with the outside world.

Then on top of everything our boarding to Athens was delayed, but at least we arrived to Athens on time. In the mean time my sister and I talked to my dad’s friends for a bit and then we walked around the airport a bit more. Then at last we were on our way to Athens, which I hope I can survive 7 days here.

Count down, here we go!!

21/4/2014

Morning dawned and we slowly got up. We had a late breakfast of the left over’s. Kieron thought it was better to pack up the  tent and then go and have a shower. We only managed to leave by 12:00 am. Family and friends left by 10:00 am. We took our time going back and stopped off at spur for a late lunch, so then only arrived back in Cape Town at around 5:00 pm. Kieron helped me pack the camping stuff away (which was a mission with another 3 people unpacking at the same time) and I gave him some of the food that I bought for him before he left to go back home.

A spring on the pass

Well, here is to next year’s adventure in the Cederberg which I call my home.

Now about this spring: Apparently Kieron stopped at this spring years ago when he was a kid and so we had to stop on our way down to fill up a flask full of spring water. The water tasted amazing!:) So much better than Cape Town water!

Kieron

Elephants – Stadsaal

Stadsaal

Stadsaal

Stadsaal

19/4/2014

Today we went wine tasting at around 10:00 am. After an hr we walked back to camp, made sandwiches and headed to Statesaal and Trekkieskraal to see some San paintings and formations. I can never get over how awesome the rocks are and I can never get over Trekkieskraal. All the places ar

Truitjieskraal

e made up of red sand stone and over years and years have formed caves and other formations. It is amazing! I love it. So of course I had to show Kieron.

The are so many places to explore there and also seeing the red rocks against the blue sky is still so beautiful to me. It takes ones breath away and it is hard to explain unless one has seen it. We explore some rocks and San paintings but at the end we ran out of time to see much of Trekkieskraal. Though next year we will definitely be back to explore even further since there are some places I haven’t seen and found before.

Can’t wait to do more exploring.

Sanddrift Bridge

Campsite

18/4/2014

We woke up this morning around 7-8 am. Had breakfast, showered, got dressed and tided up camp. That was around 10:00 am when we started out to the farm house to get permits for Stadsaal and Truitjieskraal for tomorrow. In the end I had to drive to Kromrivier to get both of them. This was an experience, because it was down in a valley and I had never driven down there before. Got the permits and Ron drove back up the pass. There is a problem, when someone comes down when someone is going up or the other way round.

Afterwards we went to Shelia for lunch. Which was awesome, then we saw my dad came walking back early from the hiking party. The rest of the family went on to climb the Tafelberg, mad I know. After lunch Kieron and I went back to chill at camp.

17/4/2014

Here is another adventure I had this year:

Cederberg, nature and beauty what more can one asks for? Of course there is nothing. That’s where I am with my boyfriend, friends and my insane family. I love this place so much. Every time I come here it feels like I am home.

This morning Kieron arrived around 10:30 am and we packed the car and headed off to the Cederberg. I happened to drive from Cape Town to Picketberg where we stopped and had lunch at spur. Then after a break Ron drove onwards and then hit the dirt track going to the Cederberg.

We arrived at our campsite at around 5:00 pm with just enough light to pitch the tent and get supper ready. We did eat in the dark, but at least the tent was up, which didn’t take that long but it was more blowing up mattress where a pain. After we had eaten hamburgers and putting on warm clothes we headed to find out if my family and friends had arrived safely, since they left so much later than us and they had. We talked to them for a bit and then decided to head back to camp to get some sleep. Though I had forgotten how cold the night could get in the Cederberg.

Driving to Cederberg

Beginning of Cederberg