Vlooisdriff to Trawal, South Africa

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Vlooisdriff to Trawal, South Africa

This was an easy travel day, around 300 km on paved road, making our way down from the high desert plateau into wine country.

We arrived at Highlander's and pitched our tents on a grassy terrace overlooking hills of grapes, all hung with fruit just formed. Whip Man and his truck White Nile was already there. We knew he would be, since we were scheduled to have a wine tasting with his group later that afternoon. They are now a small group, and we noticed some tension between two people, who were fighting, which is not an uncommon sight for an overland group, we are told.  

This is spring in South Africa. We went for a walk down the road for a few kilometers, just enjoying the scenery, with grapes everywhere. We passed one of the two who had been fighting earlier, sitting on the side of the road getting his composure back. We note that, in spite of some tension along the way, our group has managed to remain civil and team-oriented. It takes hard work and a certain maturity to travel with other people in the same vehicle for several weeks under the roughest of travel conditions imaginable. But it really helped that our group had a cook who planned all the grocery shopping and did the cooking. Many overland groups, like the group on the White Nile, have no cook and are expected to do everything themselves. We could imagine the tension that alone would cause. Hurray for Geckos! We had a great cook, AND large tents. Ah, the little luxuries in life!

Back to the wine tasting. Sparky, who was wearing a kilt in honor of his family roots, which hail back to Scotland (thus the name Highlanders), lead the wine tasting of 8 different wines. We shared the tasting with a few of the Acacia group from the White Nile. Needless to say, no one took advantage of the spittoon provided, so as the tasting progressed, our group grew more and more boisterous. A good time was had by all. We bought two bottles of vermouth to bring home, not thinking about how we would pack this in our luggage (they fit nicely, one each into a zip lock bag, then nestled into our sleeping bags in their compression bags).

Some of our group stayed on at the bar and as we drifted off to sleep, we heard them return laughing and giggling, trying to find the right tent. 

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