Saturday, February 05, 2011

Golden Gate National Park

This post comes courtesy of a galaxy android tablet which only has a touchscreen keyboard so typing anything is a is a bit of a laborious affair. Neverthelss i persist with two thumbs so please forgive some of the spelling!
We drove down yesterday and other than getting out of Johannesburg which took a while, the trip was uneventful. It took so long to get out of Johannesburg due to the ongoing construction, we started at 5 lanes which became 4 and then 3, 2 and finally only a single lane. Other than that the drive was great everything is really green and verdant in an african kind of way.

Arriving at the campsite was quite different to the european camping grounds we have become used to. Firstly, the cost of camping is approximately the same but here you don't get to pay extra for electricity and you don't have to keep on turning the hot water on in the showers, a very annoying european invention.
Another big difference was that within a couple of hours we had met our neighbours, something that didn't really happen in europe. I think that during the three months there were only three times we got chatting to fellow campers three times and out of those one was australian and the other american.

We arrived as the sun was setting so i didn.t really have a chance to capture the setting sunlight on the sandstone cliffs so i hope to capture this tomorrow.

One would think that after 3 months of putting a tent up almost every day we would have it down pat but not so, we had to remember some of the finer details while we put it up.

Another big difference here is the number of younger people and motorcyclists that are in the campground. In europe camping is mostly and older persons pastime, we were almost always part of the younger crowd there whereas here we are definitely part of the geriatric brigade.

From a facilities it is much of a muchness although european campsites are somehow more sophisticated which is not to say better!

Settled down for a good nights sleep listening to the rustle of the wind in the trees overhead and the burble of the stream behind us.