Last day at the daisies

Had a much smaller dinner last night, but still woke up at 2. However, I had a much better non-sleep than the night before, as the mattress didn't feel quite so lumpy! Must have been the electric blanket that I left on. Another beautiful day dawned and we got up early and packed for Cape Town. Our first port of call would be Vredendal, where we would buy a new spare tyre and feel a little happier about the trip home. It wasn't long before the air temperature started to rise from 8 degrees and soon it was 25 degrees. The tyre place in Vredendal had less than salubrious facilities for us to wait in, and looked more like a depository for ruined office chairs than a place to sit. Mother took it all in her stride and pronounced the dirty seats to only look dusty, they weren't actually going to impart it to the seat of your pants. She knitted while Dad and I hovered in the carpark waiting to be attended to. We simultaneously had the idea that we would just have the new tyre put on the rim and back in the boot rather than fit it and have the whole lot balanced. That would have meant a wait of 30 - 40 minutes which we didn't relish. So five minutes later I had repacked the boot with all our luggage and we were off.

Within a few kilometres, we came to the first stop/go - extensive roadworks are happening all the way from Klawer to Citrusdal - and we added another hour of waiting time to travelling time. All the while, the temperature was rising and it was soon 32 degrees - rather a change from the slashing rain and freezing temperatures of a week before. Waiting in the queue for up to 15 minutes at a time meant we couldn't have the airconditioner running in the car and had to have the windows open, and the mirror tells me that I caught quite a suntan during the day! If we had gone up in my Golf, there would have been no airconditioner at all, so we were nonetheless grateful for the intermittent cool air.

The variety of geological features in South Africa is an endless source of interest and entertainment, and we moved from granite mounds to dolerite to sprawling plains with the wide and slow flowing Olifants River providing irrigation water for the intensive farming activities. The Cederberg range offered a jagged skyline and the Groot Winterhoek had an impressive amount of snow on the peaks despite the high temperatures in the valley.

A fortunately uneventful drive saw us arriving home at tea time, and driving into Kommetjie reminded me that I do, after all, still live in a most beautiful part of the world.