All a bit different here in the great outdoors, without 0530 starts for game rides. Lazy 0830 brekker by the fire pit –
And a great relief to see the departure of the Konspiracy King. There will only be the two of us and a youngish German couple in the camp tonight. Camp hosts are keen to drive us the 750m to the car park, and rather shocked that we prefer to walk it …honestly, we have hardly moved our legs in the last week, it’s horrendous for the health being here.
Chris picks us up in the car park at 1100, and we have a discussion of the social fractures and unintended effects of positive discrimination… She finds it understandably uncomfortable to be in this environment . Despite the great work that the Ikhala practise is doing, the racial split is still very apparent 30 yrs after ending apartheid. Distrust of a corrupt government is about the only thing that seems to unite everyone.
We drive past the Ikhala vet practice and have lunch in Grahamstown ( now officially known as Makhanda , but seems like most people stick with the old name).
We had been told by someone in England that Grahamstown reminded her of Oxford : this was a bit of a stretch. There is a very old stone built private school (St Andrews) which looks posh, and the Rhodes (red brick) university , but based on our brief drive around, it’s otherwise a bit deprived – apparently a big decline in recent years.
After we dropped Chris back at the vet practice , we went up to look at the hilltop view from a fort and “Settlers Museum” but it looked so abandoned and dody that we gave it a miss. That is one of the challenges here : you want to get outside the established tourist trail but you start to feel very exposed if you do.
Theres lots of ‘artificial employment ‘ jobs too, which reminds me of the old Soviet Union. At our first visit to a petrol station, we found that you have to sit in the car and be served by attendants. Ours must have despaired at the stupid “more money than sense” tourist’s inability to find the petrol cap release button, but she very kindly pointed it out to me in good humour.
Arriving back at Tygerfontein, it was rather lovely to see 4 giraffes just relaxing by the entrance.
We could then chill till dinner….and had the relief of a companionable, interesting, funny chat with the Germans who turned out to be a cardiologist and a nurse. His advice – just take the statins !
I tried to spot the Southern Cross but with limited success. If my app was right, the constellation was 80% below the horizon – which seems wrong, I’ve always thought the pole star stays high in the northern skies, so wouldn’t the same apply here ?
Corrections by anyone who knows more about astronomy are very welcome.