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Published: June 27th 2010
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June 17th
Breakfast supplies were on low and to top it off there wasn’t a lot of gas left so it was another morning of tea and oatmeal. While the group was having their breakfast we had found a small size soccer ball to kick about and we had a good laugh trying to shoot it into each others tents while we were taking them down.
After leaving Felix Unite (our campsite on the Orange River) we headed for South Africa, the border being 10 minutes away. We stamped out of Namibia and while Farron took care of the paperwork for his truck we kicked around the football some more. After getting our South Africa stamps we kicked it about again until Luke lobbed it over the fence and into no man’s land!
I jumped in the cab to keep Farron company on the long road towards the wine country of South Africa, country number thirty-two for me. The drive was very scenic with large mountains jutting out from all sides and lots of rock formations that had me thinking “How the hell did the mountain form that way??” and “I wonder how frickin’ long it took for
that to happen!?”.
Our first stop after a couple hours of driving in Bridget and David’s homeland was a town named Springbok. It must have been the windiest day in the history of the town, I felt that I would get blown away on the walk from the truck to the supermarket. Everyone picked up lunch and supplies for the last few days of the journey, and David helped me get a SIM card for my phone, since in South Africa it is mandatory to have an address in order to get a SIM card.
After our stop we continued on towards the wine country and the final destination. We went from the North Cape province to the Western Cape in the next few hours and before long the scenery went from a brownish green to a nice lush green color. Wine farms littered the landscape and large mountains and plateaus were in sight any direction we looked.
We had arrived to the Highlanders campsite before the sun went down but by the time we had our tents setup it had gone down. Arranged for us was a wine tasting special from the owner of the campsite,
an ex overland truck driver South African named Sparky. The wine tasting was a great laugh and for $7 to drink seven glasses of wine (and get much more of a buzz than I was expecting to get at a wine tasting) it was a bargain. We even had some cheese served to us along with the wine and that just made the experience that much better!
After getting our fill of reds and whites, and even a rose, we headed back down to the truck and the campsite just down the hill from the restaurant. Dafydd had prepared dinner for us since the last couple days he was feeling under the weather so he wanted to redeem himself. Redeem himself he did and he cooked one hell of a chili con carne that sat well on all the wine in our stomachs. After dinner we headed back up to the restaurant to watch the Mexico play in the World Cup against France. It was a good time and especially as a Mexico supporter, they ended up winning 2-0.
Celebrating the Mexico win we headed BACK down to the campsite and sat around the fire drinking wine and
being merry. Wendy and I were troopers and stayed up until 2am talking about all topics. She’s become a great friend and I’ll miss her dearly, we only have a few more days left of eachothers company!
We called it a night after the wine had run out and our campfire had been reduced to just a couple coals. The next day was 5 hours away and Cape Town was almost in throwing distance (okay not really!).
Hope you like the post and photos as much as I did recalling it and seeing it! Until next time, PURA VIDA!
-Brendan
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wendy
non-member comment
And no hangover!
Nice work and yep missing your smilex.