Road Trip: Mountains,Oceans,Desert (Part 1)

We really, really needed a holiday, and thus had planned a wonderful break consisting of 17 whole days away from home and business. Over the border to the South, and far, far from here... Falling into the car, exhausted, after my usual frantic preparations for going away, I was actually too tired to even look forward to being on holiday. By the time we reached South Africa, the mere two days we had been away felt like weeks already!

Eventually, with the traffic and city stress of Johannesburg disappearing in our rear view mirror, we hit the long road even further South. Despite already being around 2000km south of home when this photo was taken, the extreme distances still beguiled with signposts such as this... "Cape Town 1014 km".

But first... a few nights in a cottage up in the mountains of the Eastern Cape, bordering on Lesotho. En route, driving through the Free State province, we initially took a brief unplanned scenic road, due to our GPS's  wrongly programmed insistence on selecting unpaved roads! While on the rural route, we saw evidence of devastation due to the fairly recent flooding in South Africa, with some of the roads almost washed away.

Whether on back roads or highway, we enjoyed the open spaces of this area, and the many picturesque lonely roadside windmills.

Crossing into the Eastern Cape province, we started to climb higher into the mountains...

..as the altitude steadily increased, so did the magnificence of the scenery out the window!

Thank goodness it was still late Summer, as we creatures from the Tropics are not familiar with this stuff, prevalent here in Winter...

The closer we got to our destination, wild and rugged mountainscapes opened up, and we found ourselves looking down into the valleys. Despite having forgotten to get exact directions to the place prior to departure, we managed to find the idyllic "Balloch Cottages" without too much route-sabotage by our ever enthusiastic electronic companion!

An earlier guest had inscribed the words "champagne air" in the visitor's book, and it was indeed so. A total contrast to the tropical, riverine, humidity back home. We were blessed with glorious weather right up till our last afternoon, and of course spent pretty much every daylight hour outdoors...

... exploring, walking in the mountains, fishing, and even swimming in the invigoratingly icy streams, all the while surrounded by  photogenic rock formations.

This dark green patch of water is a natural swimming pool - just a short walk from our cottage, and bordered by a perfect picnic spot on the river bank.

The art of fly fishing is perfectly suited to mountain streams... This photo was taken as the last fish was caught and released - right before a crazy headlong dash back downhill to shelter, outrunning a dramatic mountain rain storm all the way! Our cottage with its fireplace, and creature comforts was a welcome refuge.

What joy to spend those few days totally disconnected from all phones, internet, TV, radio, and other trappings of the 'real' world.

On a rainy morning, we left our mountain paradise, ready to find phone signal, check in with the business back home, and then drive all the way down to the coast - to be continued as part 2 of my travel journal!

To end off, for readers who have lasted this far, here's a map courtesy of Google earth, to give an idea of our travels in part one.

I've been back home now for almost two weeks, and have finally managed to get through most of the backlog, new work, and deadlines so am taking a breather, and re-visiting my blog after a very long absence. Great to be back!

Weekend greetings from over here, to wherever you are!