Going home day is always sad, but also good. Sad because a wonderful trip is coming to an end, but good because all went well and there is now an opportunity to fix things – I have a long list. And plan the next trip and free the cats from their Angels "prison". We packed up slowly and left just after the old couple in their Nissan camper with a trailer for their generator. We stopped at the entrance to look at previous owner's, Ian Uys, books. He had written a number of historical books, dealing especially with the Anglo Boer war and Delville Wood. Then we said goodbye to Piet. He had obviously been waiting for us to leave as his bakkie left just after Troopy. We hoped he would keep his job under the new owners of Bushman Valley. He was a very decent fellow. We drove past the turnoff to the Swartberg Pass that we had driven over earlier in the year. The road to Klaarstroom was very attractive and the town appeared little changed except that the informal housing was much increased. Just before Meiringspoort there was a burnt out car on the side of the road. This was probably what yesterday’s fire engine was on its way to, although it would have taken at least 30 minutes to get there. We stopped in the pass briefly. It was rather quiet with not much traffic on the road. The road through the pass is spectacular with “elke drif ‘n draai en om elke draai ‘n drif” (a drift at every turn and round every turn a drift), the words of author and poet CJ Langenhoven. There are twenty five drifts, each with a name. As we left the pass, we thought it might be a good idea to pop into Ray's Coffee Shop at the entrance to De Rust. It was quite busy, but we found an outside table and enjoyed sharing a muffin and really good coffee. Then it was on to the road to Uniondale. This was familiar territory for us, but always lovely to drive through. The poort beyond Uniondale is like a mini Meiringspoort making its way up to the Langkloof. Then it was a final left turn for home. We noticed a sign indicating a new service station in Haarlem and then it was on through the Langkloof, well known for it’s apples and other deciduous fruit. We passed the small familiar villages such as Misgund, Krakeel, Louterwaetr and the larger ones Joubertinia and Kareedouw. Many of the peaks in the adjacent Tsitsikamma mountains are well known to us as we have climbed them in the past. We were looking for a spot for lunch and decided to turn into the road to the Churchill Dam. We thought that we had missed the road, but it proved to be very close to the national road. It was a tarred road as I had thought and we stopped under some blue gums after a quick excursion into the village. The wind was quite strong, but with the car faced into it we could use the stove and toaster to make toasted sarmies for lunch. The purple ericas were flowering profusely next to the road where we had stopped. The final 100 kms back home along the N2 were uneventful and wemost drove of the way reliving an incredible two weeks. We went straight home to unpack without having to worry about the Kits. We hoped they did not hear us as we drove past their cat hotel! We would fetch them later.

Geschreven door Leartravels