11th June - Of animals, caves and strange-tasting lamb

Left Oudtshoorn and went to the Cango Wildlife Reserve, which was essentially a glorified zoo. It was kinda cool to see the wildcats, crocodiles, pygmy hippos and other creatures though, but still, I probably would have given it a pass if I only knew what it really was.

But at least I got to see this lovely couple at the 'reserve'.

Then we went to an ostrich farm to do more tourist-y things such as touching ostriches, and Claud and I got to take turns riding very briefly on the ostriches. I tried getting out of it by telling our guide at the farm that I'm probably too heavy for the ostrich to lift, but he only said that he'd give me the largest one they had. I guess there was no getting out of that, but well, at least it was quite amusing, those brief moments of hanging on to a mutant bird's wings for dear life, trying to not fall off and embarrass myself further.

Sharing a tender moment with the resident head honcho ostrich Linda, who is apparently decidedly anti-male as she has spurned all advances by her male counterparts, and even hates it if male tourists touch her. Maybe that's why I was sent to give her a hug instead of Rickey, who'd probably have got his eyes poked out.

A mini ostrich-riding adventure.

If you want to know where Old School is, it's here.

After our time at the farm, we headed to the Cango caves. Pretty cool geological formations and rather gorgeous stalactites and stalagmites.



And then, the best and most exciting part of the day was driving through the Swartberg Pass. The view was absolutely spectacular, with precipitous drops if one were to drive off the winding mountain path. The sedimentary rock formations were really something. I would have taken more pictures if we had stopped, but a certain someone was not necessarily very enthusiastic about that idea... "I am not very comfortable..." - grits teeth- Oookay.

The ceaselessly winding path. I would have stuck out my hand to take a better picture, but the road was bumpy and I was afraid I'd just lose a grip of my cellphone and have it meet its fateful end.

Now he looks more relaxed, only because he saw other idiots, erm, I mean tourists like us who decided to take this path.

The really cool valley on the other side of the mountain pass which we drove to.

Arrived safely, albeit a little dusty at Prince Albert, where we checked into this nice little place called the Swartberg Hotel, which was a nice Victorian house with our own little cottage to stay in. Dinner was really quite enjoyable, with some locally produced red wine, a mozarella and tomato salad, a delicious leg of Karoo lamb, and some other Cape Malay dish called Bobotie. Ok, the lamb was great, but I've never heard food described as someone I know. It was definiitely very disturbing to know that it 'tastes like Rickey'. Eew.

A fine evening.