We are on holiday and we are on our way to Botswana. We left Cape Town mid-morning on our way to Botswana and Namibia for next 20 days. In total we are expecting to do over 6500kms during this trip. Our car (The Beast) was load to the brim. When we started packing I thought there was no way we would fit everything in but amazing we did manage. We are Master Packers and this trip was no exception.

We left the house and by the stop street at the end of the road realized we have left a few things and so turned around and went back to fetch them. Stephen still managed to leave his bird book at home (vital accessory for the trip really).  We had planned to stop for lunch but never managed to find anything until almost 2pm at Klawer (Wimpy).  That was already past the mandatory stop for biltong at Trawal Biltong Shop. If you’re traveling on the N7 past Trawal you absolutely have to stop and buy biltong at their store.

After Klawer we turned off the N7 heading toward Calvinia. You have to go over the Van Rhyns pass and unfortunately heavy trucks also use that route. We got stuck behind two of them doing 4 km/h (not kidding). Very painful. And while I think of it, it still amazes me how people drive. We have a minibus with a trailer driving in front of us at 130-140km/h in the yellow line (they had a 100 km/h maximum speed sticker on the bus!) and another guy passed us doing about 150 km/h on a blind rise having no idea what oncoming traffic he could be meeting (fortunately it was none because he would have taken us out as well).

We arrived at Calvinia at around 4:30pm and had a quick drive around the town and saw their post box which they claim is the biggest post box in world. We are staying at Die Blou Naartjie – a guest house we have actually stayed at previously. We are actually traveling with 3 other families as well. They all arrived after us – one family pretty much right behind us and then the other 2 arrived about an hour later.  We had enough time for a quick walk around the town. Not much happening in Calvinia except people doing their Friday late afternoon shopping.

We had a dinner in the restaurant at the Guest House. The 14 of us basically had half the restaurant. As we are in the Karoo, many of us had lamb – either lamb pie or lamb chops. Good hearty food and even better conversation. Relatively early to bed – watching a little cricket while I type this.  Trying to forget that the UK really did vote to leave and implications of that for me personally (and my employer) and the world financial markets.  Most of our conversation for the 4.5 hours in the car today was on the Brexit vote – the time did pass quite quickly.

Until tomorrow …

P, H, S, M & C

(sorry no pics … connections were just terrible)