Sunday 15th February 2015: travel to Barrydale

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Sunday 15th February travelling to Barrydale



Geographically Barrydale is about an hours drive from Montagu along Route 62, but we decided to go a different way and arrived at our destination 5 hours later, via other mountain passes and a town called Swellendam.



Swellendam boasts one of the top 5 museums in South Africa which included tin smiths workshop, barrel makers, a forge and replica houses of times gone by. Swellendam was a bit of an oasis town after travelling through what is known as the 'Little Karoo Area.' (Karoo is a generic term for shrub land only fit for sheep).



We continued our journey on to Barrydale, which we found to be a little disappointing by way of scenery and amenities ( all closed by 5 pm on a Sunday, apart from the local Hotel ) The only accommodation available was a place called Sandy's, which was a self catering chalet style property. Nice enough.

For our evening meal the only option was the hotel! We were greeted by comments that they were expecting a power cut later on. True to form - we were just enjoying our meal when .... Pow!! Electric went off and candles rushed to the table!!! ..... Romantic touch !!



The power cut did enable us to see quite a spectacular Don McClean -"Starry starry night" Sky where there was no light pollution!





INTERESTING FACT: Power Sharing (power cuts) is common all over South Africa) due to the Infra structure not being able to support the demand.

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