Summertime Sunshine

Two weeks ago, Blair and Alex finally got out of St Francis and came to visit Chida and I in Grahamstown. After barely leaving St Francis since they arrived in South Africa, it was exciting for them to see a new place and meet new people! They immediately got along great with our friends here, and enjoyed their first Friday night out in a university town in SA, experiencing the infamous Rat & Parrot as well as Friar’s.

On Saturday, we travelled to Kenton-on-Sea to spend a day at the beach. Our friends took us to a remote cove that was sheltered from the wind (it was a particularly blustery day) and we had a blast playing baseball, rugby, and cricket (I’m slowly starting to understand that crazy sport) as well as exploring the rocky shore, relaxing in the sand and swimming in the water. We capped the day off by watching the Spring Boks play Scotland at Jerry’s, a pub that served incredible pizza.

Our beach hideaway (not my photo)

The next day we went for a hike at the Assegaai Trails, about 30 minutes from Grahamstown. Based on the website I wasn’t expecting much, but when we spoke to the manager he told us we might see giraffe and other animals – and sure enough we did!

Glenfield Cliff

There are always interesting things to be found in the wild...

Sand baths - a new fad?

Assegaai was badly hit by the floods earlier in October, and the roads around the grounds were pretty rough and full of potholes. We parked the car and hiked down to Rock Bottom, a camp that previously would have been pretty nice to stay at but is now covered in debris and sand. On our way back up the hike, we encountered a few warthogs and even a couple baboons whose noisy grunts alarmed us to the point where we were all carrying small rocks as protection! Luckily we made it out unharmed and drove out of Assegaai, but not without another hello from our giraffe friends.

Monday November 19^th was Chida’s birthday, which we celebrated raucously with a modified version of porch climbers. On Wednesday, Alex and Blair headed back to St Francis, where Chida and I will be joining them at the end of the month.