The Mighty Swartberg

---

by Mrs Plod

Woke up after a wild and windy (that's win-dee) night. At times I thought the roof of our cottage was going to blow right off! There may have been rain during the night, too--either that, or dust was hitting the metal roof. Unfortunately, neither Ross nor I slept very well. The cottage still smelled rather smoky this morning. We got cleaned up and went over to the farm for breakfast--another good one. We took care of our bill, climbed the ridge up behind our cottage (beautiful view of the little valley) and headed all the way back to Oudtshoorn, so we could get going to Prince Albert. We played my new David Kramer CD--fun to be in or passing the little towns he is singing about! Ross and I both heartily agreed that grilling our ostrich filets for dinner had been a much better plan than eating in Oudtshoorn last night--not sure that we would have found our way back to Red Stone Hills, let alone at what time! We started up the Swartberg Pass, a single ( or 1.5 max) lane, dirt road of hairpin bends and switchbacks at about 12:20. Again, the views were breath-taking and the whole concept of how this road even came to be is mind-boggling. Quite an engineering feat! Saw at least on stand of pine trees that my forester great-grandfather planted! (This is "my roots" country!) We were through the pass in about an hour and into Prince Albert. It is the quintessential lovely little Karoo town! We checked into Onse Rus, a guesthouse that once was the home of my grandmother's family. The innkeeper, Lisa, was a very hospitable lady. She sent us off to the little museum in town--quite an amazing one, actually. It is a little bit of natural history, and a lot of local history, and a sort of research base for people doing family or town research. We found a picture of my great-uncle Kotie Hough (class photo) and a photo of my great-grandfather, Jan Hough, the forester. After the museum, we stopped at a little shop for some dried fruit (South African dried fruit is out of this world!!) and scurried back to Onse Rus for tea and the most heavenly slabs of chocolate cake. We sat in the courtyard by the swimming pool with the blue sky above and the afternoon sun on our shoulders...couldn't really ask for anything more. I gave Lisa some photo files our my granny's family and she was so thrilled. She feels that she owes it to the house to know as much and share as much as she can about the people who lived in it. After that, we moved into the guest lounge, sat around eating Karoo olives and fresh naartjies (clementines) while we caught our journals up. At 7:00ish, we walked over to the Karoo Kombuis, a small, but wonderful restaurant. It has a set menu, and a no-child-under-15 policy. Fortunately, Lisa convinced the owners that Owen would not be a problem, and he was allowed to join us. Ross had bobotie and kudu pie, I had roast lamb and chicken pie, and Owen had a small plate of roast lamb. Butternut squash and green beans, rice and roast potato with gravy came with it. To end off, we had malva pudding with custart--heavenly! Owen was told that he was welcome anytime, and we were very proud of him! We looked at a black sky full of stars on our brisk walk home, said goodnight to Lisa, and turned in.

---