Southern Africa Safari 2017 D Day + 7

Right on our doorstep at Storms River Camp

With all the excitement of the fire and its consequences I forgot to record a trip we did to Storms River in the Tsitsikamma some 100kms from Knysna, the purpose of the trip was to celebrate Denise’s birthday on the 4^th June. On earlier visits we said it would be nice to spend a weekend, and so it turned out to be. We had a chalet right on the sea side well within the sound of the sea breaking on the rocks, which at time sounded like rifle shots, it is amazing that something so loud and violent looking can have a soothing effect. We undertook walks along the coast line, which were quite strenuous, but very scenic and our walk to the waterfall is part of the Otter Trail. All I can say is I do not think we will be doing the Otter Trail in its entirety any time soon, if ever.

We spent two nights at the Storms River Camp and we would certainly do that again.

This was the Waterfall we walked too very little water which is the state of affairs
along the garden route at present

Birthday Breakfast for Denise

Our friends Roger and Julia Hogarth have been very good to us,  they brought down to us just about all the safari gear we need for our Southern Africa trip and as a result our cash flow will not feel the strain of equipping the vehicle with recovery gear, compressor, tools and a host of other items that we have not needed on earlier trips, but we all know that when you do not go with it, that is when you need it, so a huge thank you to Roger and Julia.

It is only one week before we commence our journey and we are starting to get excited, it will be wonderful to get away from Knysna as all anyone wants to talk about is the fire and all we want to do is move forward.

We are just waiting for the Insurers to come back to us with a final offer as we rejected their first offer, but it is a matter of negotiation and we are sure we will have an acceptable offer within this week. Our selected builder is ready to start we just need one more plan to be stamped by the Knysna Municipality.

We thought when we built our last house in Johannesburg that we would never build again and we never wanted to. It is back to visiting; tile, bathroom fittings, furniture, appliances, carpets, pots and pans, eating utensils, glasses, crockery, stoves, ovens, fireplaces etc, etc suppliers in Knysna where the selection is not great or George which has more shops and variety, thank goodness Denise has taken control of most of these aspects.

We have just had 10 days of the Oyster Festival here in Knysna and it was fairly busy, we did not even get to one event, the nearest we got was to eat some oysters when we had dinner with Roger and Julia A fair number of B&B’s and Guest Houses were lost in the fire, but we believe the attendance was quite good judging by the number of vehicles on our  roads and we got snarled up in one of the running road races, which was very well attended, of course touring the devastation caused by the fire was on the to do list of a lot of visitors.

We are having our “Christmas in July” event on Sunday at our good friends Billy and Anne McClelland who also lost their house, but are renting on Leisure Isle, which is much more spacious. There were 10 of us in total and it exceeded our expectations, the only downside was the landlord of Billy and Anne's house had not reactivated the TV and there was the British Open Golf, Tour de France and a host of other sports, but all was not lost it got activated at around 3.00pm. At least we were not distracted by the sport whilst having a traditional Christmas lunch. The Christmas in July  has become a bit of a tradition so we had to keep it going, fire or no fire, TV or no TV.

With all the excitement of the fire and its consequences I forgot to record a trip we did to Storms River in the Tsitsikamma some 100kms from Knysna, the purpose of the trip was to celebrate Denise’s birthday on the 4^th June. On earlier visits we said it would be nice to spend a weekend, and so it turned out to be. We had a chalet right on the sea side well within the sound of the sea breaking on the rocks, which at time sounded like rifle shots, it is amazing that something so loud and violent looking can have a soothing effect. We undertook walks along the coast line, which were quite strenuous, but very scenic and our walk to the waterfall is part of the Otter Trail. All I can say is I do not think we will be doing the Otter Trail in its entirety any time soon, if ever.

We spent two nights at the Storms River Camp and we would certainly do that again.

Our friends Roger and Julia Hogarth have been very good to us,  they brought down to us just about all the safari gear we need for our Southern Africa trip and as a result our cash flow will not feel the strain of equipping the vehicle with recovery gear, compressor, tools and a host of other items that we have not needed on earlier trips, but we all know that when you do not go with it, that is when you need it, so a huge thank you to Roger and Julia.

It is only one week before we commence our journey and we are starting to get excited, it will be wonderful to get away from Knysna as all anyone wants to talk about is the fire and all we want to do is move forward.

We are just waiting for the Insurers to come back to us with a final offer as we rejected their first offer, but it is a matter of negotiation and we are sure we will have an acceptable offer within this week. Our selected builder is ready to start we just need one more plan to be stamped by the Knysna Municipality.

We thought when we built our last house in Johannesburg that we would never build again and we never wanted to. It is back to visiting; tile, bathroom fittings, furniture, appliances, carpets, pots and pans, eating utensils, glasses, crockery, stoves, ovens, fireplaces etc, etc suppliers in Knysna where the selection is not great or George which has more shops and variety, thank goodness Denise has taken control of most of these aspects.

We have just had 10 days of the Oyster Festival here in Knysna and it was fairly busy, we did not even get to one event, the nearest we got was to eat some oysters when we had dinner with Roger and Julia, a fair number of B&B’s and Guest Houses were lost in the fire, but we believe the attendance was quite good judging by the number of vehicles on our  roads and we got snarled up in one of the running road races which was very well attended, of course touring the devastation caused by the fire was on the to do list of a lot of visitors.

We are having our “Christmas in July” event on Sunday at our good friends Billy and Anne Mc Clelland who also lost their house, but are renting on Leisure Isle, which is much more spacious so there will be 10 of us in total and we are looking forward to that event. This occasion has become a bit of a tradition so we had to keep it going.

This week and next week will be about tying up loose ends for our trip like ordering Pula for use in Botswana, putting all our travel documents together, last minute purchases, getting a nice new cage for Snuggles (Our Parrot) sorting out his accommodation and we think we will be ready by the 1^st of August, well we have to be.

Part of the rocky climb to the waterfall

  We will try to keep in regular contact on our trip, so please keep following us.