… are getting some serious use. Until the electrician comes in on Monday to install the boat’s Capi electrical system, there’s little we can do at the factory except get in the way – so we’ve kept ourselves busy elsewhere. Today, that meant donning our walking boots and heading for the hills – a favourite pastime. The B&B we’re staying in (which is excellent, btw – thanks Lena and Jack) is nestled in the Gillitts 1000 Hills area. 1000 or 100, who knows? – but nothing around here is on the flat for very long, that’s for sure. Today, our hill-trekking took us to the Krantzkloof Reserve – just a hop and a skip away in the car. Waterfalls, wildlife, plush vegetation and rushing streams – and enough rocks, forests, hills and gorges to give those boots of ours a real outing. Odd and completely delightful to find, having clambered steep and high through thick forest to emerge on open plain, two surprised zebras watching us through the long grasses. The weather was kind too – warm and dry and with that whisper of autumn crisp in the air as we rounded off a vigorous three-hour trek. Back at the ranch, I see the midges have, as ever, made a feast of me; Dick, lucky swine, is lump, bump and itch-free. I wish those wretched little biters would realise they’re on a hiding to nothing: it’s unrequited love all the way.
It’s odd, but despite the clement weather today, it just feels plain weird plunging from an English spring in full swing, to African autumn in full leaf-fall. Bodies are creatures of habit and like their seasons to run nice and orderly with no messing – and no missing. A year to be spent entirely without a summer is a strange concept.
Tomorrow, we hang up our boots – at least for a while. Dick wants to be there when the Capi system is installed, so he’ll have a better understanding of how to operate and fix it should the need arise. And it will … that’s boats for you. Me? Well, I shall be measuring up for some internal furnishings (like porthole curtains and cushions which I want to make myself) and no doubt taking some more photos of our hatching Butterfly to pin up here. Whither goest I, so goest camera.
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