Cape Town - Oudtshoorn, S.A.

---

July 16, 17, 2008

Cape Town - Oudtshoorn, S.A.

Wednesday morning we began our exploring of the Cape area of South Africa. We met our guide, Carles, and drove today north and east to Oudtshoorn. This is a very nice drive through some beautiful mountains to an area of farms and past many small vineyards and fruit growing areas.

The landscape changes to semi-desert ( very similar to Arizona ) and a few beautiful green valleys in the mountains. There are big sheep farms and as we approached Oudtshoorn many more farms.

Our stay in Oudtshoorn was at a very, very nice place called Rosenhof Country House. Maybe the nicest place we have stayed at on our whole trip. Oudtshoorn is a small city of 100,000 or so and the Country House is on the outskirts of this quiet farming town. The Country house is a beautiful place with 14 rooms ( 6 side by side duplexes and 2 large separate suites ) and a first class restaurant. I think there was one other couple staying here as this is off season.

The weather here was a bit of a shock !!! We expected Africa to be warm or hot, as we mentioned before. Today we had frost on the ground and windshield this morning. !! It gets warm as the sun comes up but not what we though we were going to see. Winter in the desert I guess. It’s still a beautiful place.

The claim to fame here is the huge Ostrich farms that are located in this area. This city was a major supplier of plumes to the world a 100 years ago or so. That market crashed when plumes went out of style and the town was hit very hard until the revival of the Ostrich business for meat. There are many mansions in town called “Feather Palaces” as they were built by the farmers who became very rich selling feathers to the world. ( for hats and boas etc ). Most went broke and sold out of the business and gave up their grandiose homes. There is still a big market for feathers for events like carnival in Rio de Janiero, Brazil.

We visited a huge cave system, Cango Caves, for some spelunking and a local wildlife breeding facility that specializes in cats ( Cheetahs, etc ). Basically a very nice zoo with lots of different animals and birds. For lunch we visited an Ostrich farm ( for a great Ostrich Steak ) and a tour of the facility and some insight into this interesting business.

This is a nice stop and a very nice break for us.

We will leave tomorrow for a trip east and south across the mountains to Plettenberg Bay on the Indian Ocean on the south coast of Africa.

---