Before I go on my next work trip I thought I should write about my last one. I travelled to Mpumalanga, Gauteng and the Free State visiting 7 clinics and 2 laboratories to collect data for a large study that I am involved in. I clocked up 3500 kilometres travelling between all the sites, this time in a little red car and not my bakkie.
I woke up to see the snow on the Berg
I woke up on the flight to Nelspruit for long enough to see Lesotho covered in a blanket of snow. Witbank was the first stop, much further from Nelspruit than I had realised! Not much to report there…
Nelspruit was lovely and tropical, with Purple Crested Turaco’s, Red Barbets and European Bee Eaters all flying in the garden of the guesthouse. The clinic I visited was very hidden, so I got to see the hospitality of the area. I met some incredibly inspiring people in my work, that made me proud to be South African, and made me believe that HIV and TB can be curbed.
Luckily there was lots of Le Tour to watch in the evenings and I managed to go to the Botanical Gardens and Kruger on the weekend before heading to Johannesburg.
Barberton Daisy
Mr Golly Wog visits the Cascades
Dr Seus trees
The gardens are lovely and I saw Fish Eagles as well as the Spruit of the Nel River. In Kruger I saw Lions hunt and kill a warthog (quite far away) but very impressive! There were also lots of rhinos! I saw 2 black rhinos, and then 7 white rhinos stood their ground on the road surrounded on two sides by 4x4s.
Spruit of the Nel
Rhino
Solo game ranging
Munch munch
Dark giraffe
In Joburg, Anthea and Uncle John welcomed me in their home and we watched Federer beat Murray in the final. They took me in again after I saw some cops, with guns out, pulling some people out of a taxi also wielding guns, needless to say I jumped that red robot!
At stages I got very very lost. I drove into the Free State from Gauteng trying to go an hour SW and ended up driving for about 4 hours and nearly running out of petrol to get there, my chaperone for the day insisted that he knew the way! He then directed me through Soweto to drop him off at the end of the visit, and I got to see some historic places.
Graham came up to Johannesburg for his work and stayed over so that we could go see a movie and get dinner together. After that I headed down to the Freestate, staying in Clarens and Golden Gate. Clarens is quite a slow paced place and was just what I felt like. I wandered up the mountain behind the guesthouse for a couple of hours and spent some time in the Roter Hahn, which seemed to served only beer and sausages (Thorst you would have approved!)!
Work call at the dam
Roter Hahn
Curryworst and Jolly Monk beer
Strong lady
Looking out over Clarens
Grandmother and her granddaughter
Chatting away in Sesotho
Grass
Climax windmills
Citroen
In Golden Gate I had a real snow fall which I’ve never seen in South Africa. Later on it cleared and I went walking in the icy cold, that night the ground got a thin layer of snow/ice.
After the first snowfall when the sun came out
From the cave of swimmers
After visiting one of the clinics in the Qwa Qwa Homeland, I visited what I thought was the Witsieshoek Car Park, but turned out to the road up to the Sentinel. Two guys from the township came riding up on mountain bikes, the told us in SeSotho that they had never gone to the top but if we could make it in our car then they could make it on their bikes. It got quite hectic at one stage and the lady I had as a passenger was quite excited saying that in her 68 years of living there she had never been there, she said to me “isn’t it amazing how you can have new experiences when you are 68?”. Witsieshoek Car Park seemed quite tame after that and amazingly there was no snow!
Avenue of poplars for Dan
The flat lands
Driving up the pass
Qwa Qwa
I stayed with the Lowry’s before coming home, driving through a part of the Midlands Meander on the way. I found a serene place for lunch and coffee called Terbodore and later found out that they have a restaurant in Franschhoek which Dan and I will be sure to visit. Mike and Tanya took me out to Hillcrest for drinks and then dinner at a new Italian (Irish run) restaurant, I strategically went to the bathroom when the bill came so Mike got it. The next morning we had an early morning ride through Kloof, which makes me wonder why we live in Cape Town in the Winter! There were huge flowering trees, sunshine, the Kloof and huge hornbills. I even had a swim before Tanya cooked up a storm! Eggs Benedict on a whim! What a woman!
Eggs benedict
The Lowry’s
lucypoppins 