Camdeboo .. hoo

We did not have a very comfortable night last night!  It started out fine with only light rain, this was after the downpour which drowned yet another of my fires, so we went to bed feeling reasonably confident.  At about 02:00 the wind really started picking up but, as luck would have it, directly from the west which was the only direction that we had any protection by way of thorn brush.  So while it howled and moaned, the tent barely moved but this was then followed by quite heavy rain for about and hour or two but it eventually finished and we weren't floating so we went back to sleep but woke up at 07:00 a little sleep deprived.

We didn't have much planned this morning other than a trip up to see the valley of desolation which was a bit smaller, actually a lot smaller, than I had in my mind but pretty stunning none the less.

On the way back down we stopped at a lookout point where we could see the whole of downtown Graaf-Reneirt in the bow of the Sundays river.  There was also a black eagle nesting on the cliffs below and we saw her go our hunting a couple of times and return with food to the nest where she must have some chicks.

Also on the way down, we drove past, then stopped and reversed to chat to the couple below who are from switzerland and have pedalled 26000 kilometres so far through europe, central and east asia as well as africa.  Pretty impressive in my book.  They were on a travelling tandem which has a recumbent up front and then a normal bike at the back.  Thought Paul would like to see this so I took a couple of photographs to send to him when I get home.

On the way home we saw really dark thunderstorms heading our way and I thought that we were going to have to cower in the tent again but they missed us and we had the best afternoon of the trip just relaxing and reading with partial cloud and warm but not hot weather.

Now if it will only hold off so that I can have at least one fire that I can stare at deep into the night.