June 19

June 19, 2007

TRAVIS:
Well, we’ve been here for about a week now, and last night was our first night of camping. Mom’s sick of it already. It was a bit of a difficult process, since we’re still figuring out the best way to pack everything together and set up camp and all of that. This morning dad was up by 5:30, at which point he started making breakfast. The rest of us were up by 6:30, and we still didn’t start driving until about 10:00. 3.5 hours to teardown is a little long (tensions ran a bit high during this process, and not everybody was happy with everybody else. But so goes it). After that fiasco, we hiked up to a lighthouse near our campground, and were finally on the road by about 11 or so. After that, the day was mostly filled with driving and watching the beautiful scenery flash by. We stopped for lunch at a beautiful place called The Heads, which is at a very narrow inlet to a bay, and walked around there for a little bit. We also stopped at the Tsitsikamma bridge, which crosses a beautiful, rugged gorge. It also happens to be the highest bungee jump in the world (709 feet high), and after watching a few people go off, Dad wanted to do it in the worst sort of way. Several of us kids would have loved to do it also, but all the pleading in the world couldn’t have convinced Mom to let us. Dad was basically on his knees pleading with her, but Mom had the last word. So, after dragging dad forcibly into the Land Rover, we continued on our way, ending our day in the town of Jeffrey’s Bay. While looking for campgrounds in the evening, we found this place where they had some pretty shifty “chalets” that you could stay in for about $5 per person. So, largely because of Mom’s influence and her stinging memory of the previous night, we stayed the night in a bug-ridden chalet, whose kitchen enabled us to enjoy a good meal of kudu stir-fry (kudu is a type of African antelope that ended up tasting slightly like liver). And that was that.
Travis