We started day 11 by going to the Fish River Sun Resort and indulging in an amazing breakfast buffet before our three hour hike. On the way into the resort, we were excited to see monkeys playing beside the road and we stopped and watched them for a bit. The breakfast variety was amazing: smoothies, crepes, omelets, meats, cheeses, dried and fresh fruits, cereal, pastries and even ice cream! While the adults finished up tasting every bite of our food, the younger people who may or may not have tasted their food as it was snarfed down, went outside for a game of giant chess.
On the tables outside of the restaurant are bottles of Monkey repellant. I have a suspicion that the liquid in the bottle is water, but whatever works to keep the monkeys away from my delicious breakfast is fine with me!
I love driving through new lands. Some say that you can't really get the feel of the culture if you live in a place for a while, but I beg to differ. Observing the homes, the agriculture, the businesses, the land and the animals inspires my imagination as to what some of the culture is. My imagination may not be National Geographic worthy, but I won't soon forget the emotions that my eyes send to my brain and heart. Along our way we saw many, many aloe vera bushes, a lot of fences made out of piles of dried bushes and sticks to corral animals, we saw bright colored schools and many locations with both bright colored homes and homes that have not seen any color.
We also saw many of these mounds in the hills along the road. These are ant hills. In the picture above you can see there are many across the hill. In the picture below you can see the anthills a little closer. Some are as big as a bush and some bigger! I didn't get to see the ants up close. I imagine they are either very large ants that can carry me away, Indiana Jones style, or they are small, but smart ants that build bigger homes to intimidate prey.
Our destination for the day was the Hogsback forest. Th Amatola forest there is said to have inspired J.R.R. Tolkien's (he was born in South Africa) Mirkwood forest in The Lord of the Rings (which is why we went, because we are big fans of the trilogy). The nearby towns have played off of the Rings theme and called some of there businesses and towns, Hobbiton and Lothlorien with fairies and elves. The trailer we are standing by in the picture actually says "The Lord of the chain rings," because each year a three day bike race is held.
There were no signs to explain why there was a working bathtub at the top of the trail, but I'm guessing it is for people who start at the other end of the trail and end up here.
So interesting to see the different living things on the other side of the world.
Of all the names to choose from for this very large, very old tree, the powers that be named this one: The Big Tree. Apparently it is a popular name because a fellow hiker asked me if I'd seen "The Big Tree" in Knysna (nice-na), South Africa.
Why Grandma and the boys chose this pose is beyond me, but I caught the smiles before the grimaces and grunts! Grandpa graciously offered to drive the van to the end of the trail, so we didn't have to hike back to the trail head.
All along the way we listening for the rustling of leaves and the movement of branches in hopes to spy monkeys in their natural habitat. We got very excited by The Big Tree when we heard rustling, but realized with a little fear that the rustling we were hearing was being made by a bigger animal than a monkey. As we listened to slow heavy footstep approach, we froze . . . and then sighed as we realized it was an exotic. . . cow.
But later on in the hike we did hear monkey rustling. We also heard baboon calling, which is a bit more nerve wracking than little monkey -oo-aa-oo's. Spencer wasn't very excited at the prospect of being trampled by baboons, but we persevered and were treated to little monkeys playing in the tree tops. I have to say that it really is a little more unnerving being out in the open with monkeys than watching them from behind bars, but that also makes it more exciting! We had a great time peering from tree top to tree top with our mouths open in delight. Thankfully nothing fell into our mouths.
Right before we reached our destination, which was the waterfall, D.J. and James decided to race ahead when they heard the water. As I was trying to keep up with them, my head snapped up when I heard them scream. Thankfully I heard laughter after the screams, the loudest laughter coming from Grandpa, the culprit of a surprise attack. He got them good, as they say.
How fortunate for us that in one vacation we get to see two "Madonna and Child" likenesses. One in Brugge and the other in the Hogsback forest. I thought the Madonna and Child referred to the waterfall itself, but I was informed that the rock formation halfway down is the Madonna and Child. It looks like a Mama facing left, holding her child up to her face.
Since it was close to the end of winter the waters were low which allowed Mark to find this carving in one of the stones along the river, another Madonna and Child likeness.
This is the actual Hogsback mountain in the distance, seen from the end of our trail.
As we started our drive back to the flat, there were people along the road coming home from a day of work. Grandpa was driving as fast as any other car on the road. Spencer thought it was hilarious that since our van was big and white, many people thought we were a taxi, like so many other big white vans are. One man started wandering on to the road, whether with intent or with inebriation, we'll never know, but the scream from me and Grandma was the butt of many jokes there after. Which just doesn't make sense to me as we were obviously the only ones who cared about that poor man!
After the near-hit situation, one of our favorite moments of the whole vacation came when Mark yelled: Look! Stop the van!! We looked to our left and saw a herd of giraffe. A HERD OF GIRAFFE!
We spent a good 20 minutes watching these beautiful, graceful animals, run, climb, walk and eat. We are not sure if they were a part of an animal reserve or not, but to us, they were in the wild, along with some zebra and wart hogs.
This giraffe was our favorite because his coloring was so striking.
We stopped for dinner at a pub and restaurant, which was the first to be built on the Eastern Cape in 1820. It's called The Pig and Whistle. They are famous for their chicken strips and special sauce, which every body except me ordered, because if I'm going to eat somewhere, I'm not going to choose chicken strips. I did taste them however and they were quite good!
In the back of The Pig and Whistle was an African Gray that I made Mark take a picture of for Granna, as she owned one named Molly once. Granna - this is an African Gray - in Africa!
That night the Elders waited for us to come home so they could get some good eatin'. D.J. is pictured here with Elder Tonge. He is the son of D.J.'s 4th and 5th grade teacher from JA Taylor Elementary in Centerville! What a great connection!
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