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Published: March 10th 2014
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An interesting week! Wednesday we met up with some "Scotiabankers" in Cape Town. Debra worked with Chris and Jan Little and they are touring South Africa. We had a nice dinner with them at the Victoria and Albert waterfront.
In advance of meeting up with Chris and Jan, we took a 2 hour tour of the Cape Town Heart Museum at the Groote Shur Hospital (it means Big Barn and was a farm owned by Cecil Rhodes who gave it to Cape Town to build a new hospital).
Dr. Christian Barnard conducted the 1st human heart transplant in 1967. This was very interesting and informative tour of an amazing event that took place 47 years ago. The tour and presentations were very well done and included a re-creation of the operating theatres in which the transplant took place. Not widely known was that the Doctor who operated on the donor (a 25 year old girl killed in a car accident) was Dr. Marius Barnard, Christian's brother, who also was a very capable heart surgeon. Marius, unlike his brother, was less flamboyant and kept a very low profile.
Debra and I played an extraordinary beautiful golf course on Thursday,
Arabella. This was about 1 hour drive from Gordon's Bay and part of a very upscale hotel and housing complex. As you can tell from the pictures, the scenery was spectacular which didn't help our game as neither one of us played particularly well. Sunday we played Erin Vale which is in Somerset West and also a very challenging and without a doubt the most beautiful golf track played to date.
Saturday was wine touring and we tried to have lunch at Tocara and Delaire Graff, however both were booked so the best we could do is fabulous pictures of both. These are absolutely beautiful and upscale wineries. The Delaire Graff is owned by Relais Graff, the upper echelon of hotel chains.
We continue to get numerous e-mails from Canada complaining about the weather. The following is from Bill Farnell, a golf friend of mine in NOTL. I thought his story about getting new club crips was hilarious and would provide great material for Saturday Night Live. I hope Bill doesn't mind me re-publishing and hopefully it will provide those that are still "snow bound" some comic relief!!
Winter has been horrible.That is probably not strong enough.Winter has been F&%!i(MISSING)ng horrible !Still not strong enough ... but you know me ... never one to complain.My golf clubs didn't need re-gripping ... but I was so sick of the cold and snow .. out of desperation .. I gathered them up and foraged my way to Niagara Golf Warehouse in St Catharines. It had been snowing for 3 days, the wind was blowing 70 kph and the damn wind-chill was at -25 C. It was my day off and I was determined to salvage some level of fun. I was wrong. Turned out to be very awkward. I clambered through their front door, wind howling, golf clubs banging only to be greeted by this hollow eyed frail looking clerk. He was walking toward me, reaching his arms out like an orphan in need of a hug ... mumbling incoherently about not having seen another human being for six and a half weeks.Awkward.
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Bill Farnell
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Still Freezing
Great Blog. Great pictures. Thanks for including me. Hope to be thawed for your return.