Image credits: Via Pinterest
Checkmate
“Bear in mind three essential qualities in all games of intellect: Never to show selfishness or to wound the feelings of your adversary. To be modest with a good game. To lose without ill-temper, and to win without bragging.” ― W. Patterson
Yeah right, try explaining that to 4-year olds!! Our kids are currently (and SIMULTANEOUSLY!) in that phase where they want to be first in everything. First to choose their dinner plate, first to be at the beach and first to wolf the food down. They want to win at everything - even playing with play dough can turn into a competition! Try taking 6 kids for a walk on a jungle road wide enough for only one person with all six of them obsessed with being in front!
OK, I know. I may be exaggerating, but my defence is that I was the only adult on that jungle walk! Sometimes they do forget to compete and the fun had with the Van Niekerk’s extensive games collection at their beach house was great. Hours and hours of fun.
Yeah right, try explaining that to 4-year olds!! Our kids are currently (and SIMULTANEOUSLY!) in that phase where they want to be first in everything. First to choose their dinner plate, first to be at the beach and first to wolf the food down. They want to win at everything - even playing with play dough can turn into a competition! Try taking 6 kids for a walk on a jungle road wide enough for only one person with all six of them obsessed with being in front!
OK, I know. I may be exaggerating, but my defence is that I was the only adult on that jungle walk! Sometimes they do forget to compete and the fun had with the Van Niekerk’s extensive games collection at their beach house was great. Hours and hours of fun.
Image credits: All photography by me
Gone fishin'
I told you earlier that the kids (and a parent or two) went fishing. Retha first made them stand in a row on the beach to practice their casts and to show them how to carry their rods on the way to the fishing waters. It was such a cute sight so see the small kids concentrating so hard! After a few successful hours on the rocks, she gutted their prey for them before they came home to all pose proudly for a photo with their catch.
These freshly caught little strepies and some other fish you need to be a reader of Stywe Lyne to remember, smoked over a flame in a little smokebox, with a few mussels in a potent garlic sauce, turned out to be our best meal of the holiday! And let's not lose sight of the best part: our pre-school kids provided the meal with us sitting around having a glass of wine!!
It seems that even 4 year old fishermen somehow know to add a centimetre or two to the actual size of the fish in retelling their moms about their exciting successful outing. There is this famous quote from William Sherwood Fox in his 1954 book, Silken Lines and Silver Hooks:
We ask a simple question
And that is all we wish:
Are fishermen all liars?
Or do only liars fish?
These freshly caught little strepies and some other fish you need to be a reader of Stywe Lyne to remember, smoked over a flame in a little smokebox, with a few mussels in a potent garlic sauce, turned out to be our best meal of the holiday! And let's not lose sight of the best part: our pre-school kids provided the meal with us sitting around having a glass of wine!!
It seems that even 4 year old fishermen somehow know to add a centimetre or two to the actual size of the fish in retelling their moms about their exciting successful outing. There is this famous quote from William Sherwood Fox in his 1954 book, Silken Lines and Silver Hooks:
We ask a simple question
And that is all we wish:
Are fishermen all liars?
Or do only liars fish?
Image credits: All photography by me
Favourite holiday pics
I am sure my husband will blush when he sees this, but these are my favourite photos from our awesome beach holiday…
Image credits: All photography by me
Oubos
On the rocky coastline of the Tsitsikamma, roughly 30 kilometres from Storms River and close to Kareedouw, you will find a very isolated, virtually unknown nature reserve, called Oubos. The spectacular coastline, all rugged boulders and small protected beaches, is bordered by the deep river gorge formed by the Grootriver East and nestled amongst fynbos and indigenous forests. To use words like idyllic or sublime do not even give you a hint at how incredibly spectacular this piece of paradise is.
It is a privately owned reserve, with 40 houses. It is the type of place where homeowners may not rent out their houses and access is off-limits to the general public. You have to pass the Oudebosch farm stall on the R102, drive on a dirt road past all the beautiful dairy farms of Eersteriver road, pass the fairly newly developed golf estate Fynbos and go through the access controlled holiday village Eersteriver to reach the locked gate of this remote sanctuary. Only then, after all that, are you amazed at your luck to have friends with a family whose grandfather bought a piece of land and build a house here 52 years ago, making it possible for you to experience it all.
My friend Retha invited us, along with our friends Andre and Kirsty, to a beach holiday at Oubos. Six adults and six kids, all between ages 5 and 1. Add the Yelvertons from Mosselbaai for a weekend (2 kids, same ages), and there goes the neighbourhood:-)!!
My little city slicker had the time of his life. He learned to cast a fishing rod and ate his own fish smoked on the fire. He learned to boogyboard and to catch the waves, and he learned to snorkel. He dropped everything every evening to run to the patio to see the spectacular sunset and watched dolphins ride the waves in front of the house. He showed a preference for sandcastles with long and deep moats, loved everything about the “coke” river, and was amazed to see prawns are actually black in the sea rather than the nice sautéed pink he knows. He rode his bicycle, launched his kite, played pirate-pirate and learned all about board games from his friends (Jan, only 5, explained the intricacies of chess to him and with Albert, who is 3, Monopoly became a full-on physical game – the two of them against the innocent plastic pieces!)
What a wonderful experience not only for Daniel, but for all of us! Everything a beach holiday should be, and I came back to Johannesburg rested and ready to tackle the rest of the year. Thanks Retha (and tannie Vanda!) (and you too, Johnny :-).
It is a privately owned reserve, with 40 houses. It is the type of place where homeowners may not rent out their houses and access is off-limits to the general public. You have to pass the Oudebosch farm stall on the R102, drive on a dirt road past all the beautiful dairy farms of Eersteriver road, pass the fairly newly developed golf estate Fynbos and go through the access controlled holiday village Eersteriver to reach the locked gate of this remote sanctuary. Only then, after all that, are you amazed at your luck to have friends with a family whose grandfather bought a piece of land and build a house here 52 years ago, making it possible for you to experience it all.
My friend Retha invited us, along with our friends Andre and Kirsty, to a beach holiday at Oubos. Six adults and six kids, all between ages 5 and 1. Add the Yelvertons from Mosselbaai for a weekend (2 kids, same ages), and there goes the neighbourhood:-)!!
My little city slicker had the time of his life. He learned to cast a fishing rod and ate his own fish smoked on the fire. He learned to boogyboard and to catch the waves, and he learned to snorkel. He dropped everything every evening to run to the patio to see the spectacular sunset and watched dolphins ride the waves in front of the house. He showed a preference for sandcastles with long and deep moats, loved everything about the “coke” river, and was amazed to see prawns are actually black in the sea rather than the nice sautéed pink he knows. He rode his bicycle, launched his kite, played pirate-pirate and learned all about board games from his friends (Jan, only 5, explained the intricacies of chess to him and with Albert, who is 3, Monopoly became a full-on physical game – the two of them against the innocent plastic pieces!)
What a wonderful experience not only for Daniel, but for all of us! Everything a beach holiday should be, and I came back to Johannesburg rested and ready to tackle the rest of the year. Thanks Retha (and tannie Vanda!) (and you too, Johnny :-).
Image credits: All photography by me
My beautiful country
While you have been reading all about Rio, I have been on an Easter holiday with my family and friends. Yes, yes, I know what you think. Holiday? Again? But, international travel can be very tiring!! One needs to relax after such a lot of sightseeing…. :-)
So, off to a very special place in the Eastern Cape, Oubosstrand. More about that tomorrow. What I want to talk about today is how the scenery on the road there and back – there is no other word for it – utterly amazed me.
Two moms, four kids, two cars. Johannesburg to the south Eastern Cape. Across 1,300 km of highways and byways over two days. Where do I begin?
Well, the overnight stop was in the town of Graaff-Reinett and, believe me, this one has ten blogs in it just waiting to happen. It’s one of those places where the streetlamps look charming. Perhaps it’s because it has the magic three for making a place great in my book: great location, fantastic history and a current population that seem to know they’re on a good wicket.
From there, to get to the coast, you go through some great Klein Karoo scenery – the Valley of Desolation and the Naudesberg Pass before the Swartberg Mountains loom up large out of the horizon. A great surprise was the small (well, small compared to Meiringspoort, see below) “kloof” just outside Uniondale, with the road winding back and forth across a small river. I would love to go back when all the aloes are in full bloom, to see all the ‘rockets’ (“vuurpyle”) colour the mountain red and yellow.
Then the road opens up into the Langkloof – the bounty of massive apple orchids in the middle of what still looks like a Karoo landscape. It runs from east to west just inland from the Tsitsikamma forest, and I kept on staring at the mountain range on either side.
And then you cross the mountain just when you get into Kareedouw, with the road flanked by king proteas on either side. The word Tsitsikamma means “place of much water” in KhoiSan, but what the map does NOT tell you is that a quirk of geology meant that each little stream coming down the mountain has carved a chasm for itself on the way to the sea, and it’s all on display right on the N2. The two most famous are of course the Storms River bridge and Bloukrans, but there are about four others that are just as impressive. Of course, what makes this stretch of the highway the Garden Route is the way that the exquisite fynbos and king proteas in full bloom make way, seemingly on call, for green pastures with Nguni cattle grazing, swiftly followed by dense rainforest.
On the way back, the GPS led us through Meiringspoort, which was a regular holiday route of ours as children, and I’d forgotten how dramatic it actually is. On the day we went through it, the first large cold front of the season had come across the coast the night before, and the Karoo, already green from a good summer season, obliged with the most dramatic vistas of the Swartberg I have ever seen. I wish I could take pictures of it through the rain specks on the car windshield, but picture the clouds rolling over mountains in the Scottish highlands and you’re halfway there.
Meiringspoort looks like God took a blunt knife and cut a wafer thin slice out of the Swartberg from north to south just for the sake of letting a river through. It’s impossibly narrow, impossibly high and the layers of the Cape mountain folds that curve up from the river make you feel like you’re seeing the mountain’s insides – some secret place that’s supposed to be hidden but is now allowing you in.
On the north side Meiringspoort spits you out into the bright sunlight of the great Karoo and a race across the open spaces to a stopover in Britstown to go and give my dad a hug. A year ago, he was diagnosed with ‘terminal’ lung cancer, only to be told earlier this week that his lungs are now totally clean without any trace of the cancer.
So, off to a very special place in the Eastern Cape, Oubosstrand. More about that tomorrow. What I want to talk about today is how the scenery on the road there and back – there is no other word for it – utterly amazed me.
Two moms, four kids, two cars. Johannesburg to the south Eastern Cape. Across 1,300 km of highways and byways over two days. Where do I begin?
Well, the overnight stop was in the town of Graaff-Reinett and, believe me, this one has ten blogs in it just waiting to happen. It’s one of those places where the streetlamps look charming. Perhaps it’s because it has the magic three for making a place great in my book: great location, fantastic history and a current population that seem to know they’re on a good wicket.
From there, to get to the coast, you go through some great Klein Karoo scenery – the Valley of Desolation and the Naudesberg Pass before the Swartberg Mountains loom up large out of the horizon. A great surprise was the small (well, small compared to Meiringspoort, see below) “kloof” just outside Uniondale, with the road winding back and forth across a small river. I would love to go back when all the aloes are in full bloom, to see all the ‘rockets’ (“vuurpyle”) colour the mountain red and yellow.
Then the road opens up into the Langkloof – the bounty of massive apple orchids in the middle of what still looks like a Karoo landscape. It runs from east to west just inland from the Tsitsikamma forest, and I kept on staring at the mountain range on either side.
And then you cross the mountain just when you get into Kareedouw, with the road flanked by king proteas on either side. The word Tsitsikamma means “place of much water” in KhoiSan, but what the map does NOT tell you is that a quirk of geology meant that each little stream coming down the mountain has carved a chasm for itself on the way to the sea, and it’s all on display right on the N2. The two most famous are of course the Storms River bridge and Bloukrans, but there are about four others that are just as impressive. Of course, what makes this stretch of the highway the Garden Route is the way that the exquisite fynbos and king proteas in full bloom make way, seemingly on call, for green pastures with Nguni cattle grazing, swiftly followed by dense rainforest.
On the way back, the GPS led us through Meiringspoort, which was a regular holiday route of ours as children, and I’d forgotten how dramatic it actually is. On the day we went through it, the first large cold front of the season had come across the coast the night before, and the Karoo, already green from a good summer season, obliged with the most dramatic vistas of the Swartberg I have ever seen. I wish I could take pictures of it through the rain specks on the car windshield, but picture the clouds rolling over mountains in the Scottish highlands and you’re halfway there.
Meiringspoort looks like God took a blunt knife and cut a wafer thin slice out of the Swartberg from north to south just for the sake of letting a river through. It’s impossibly narrow, impossibly high and the layers of the Cape mountain folds that curve up from the river make you feel like you’re seeing the mountain’s insides – some secret place that’s supposed to be hidden but is now allowing you in.
Image credits: Photo taken by me
L'Odyssée de Cartier
Beautiful. Epic. Jewellery so over the top, but who cares?! Cartier takes you on a journey...
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