Dam it's hot!

No, it's not a curse or a spelling mistake, it was HOT! Last week we went to Clanwilliam Dam for another little mid-week break, we find that Alfie needs a change of scenery every now and then, so we oblige! Off we set on Monday morning with the usual south easter blowing to help us on our way. A nice cool temperature of about 21, lovely. We had booked at a private caravan park on a working citrus farm on the banks of the dam, only about 121 kms as the crow flies from home, but just over 200 as the road winds! We arrived at lunchtime and stepped out of the airconditioning to ........................40 degrees! And no wind. At all. By the time we had put the tent up, burning our fingers from the metal rods lying in the sun, I was seriously considering climbing back into the car and coming home!

Almost at the campsite.

After a cold shower and a lekker (lovely) braai (barbeque) I must admit I felt a little more positive, and after doing a spot of stargazing, we headed for bed with the trusty fan blowing onto the bed all night!

Hot, hot, hot!

We were woken at 3 in the morning by the sound of a motor. At first I thought that someone was stealing the boat that was tied up nearby, then Rob realised that it was a tractor! And it was going up and down the rows of orange trees belching smoke onto the leaves! Rob christened it 'Puff the magic dragon' and I gave it a much ruder name! Poor Alfie felt the heat too and Rob tried to coax him into the dam to cool down, but he wasn't very keen and spent a lot of time just sitting around, like we did!

Our 'hot-dog'!

This next bit is going to seem strange, but we saw the most peculiar lights in the sky one evening. We had been staring at the sky for over an hour, counting satellites (11 one evening), when we both saw strange flashing lights. Not a plane as they were not regular and also they didn't follow a straight path, but were random. Our camping neighbour also saw them, so we were not imagining things. (Or drunk).Interestingly the annual UFO conference was taking place in Johannesburg, maybe we had some extra delegates!
We spent most of our week in the camp as there was 25 kms of bone jarring dirt road to get to Clanwilliam, but we did go for a little ramble the day before we came home. Alfie saw cows and one was very happily in the water eating 'waterblommetjies'.

A happy cow among the 'waterblommetjies'.

However, the road deteriorated and we abandoned the adventure!

The sign jokingly says 'quick way down 1 km', oy!

On the way back to the campsite, we nipped into the local 'spar' at Clanwilliam for a few essentials. Now, remember that this town is small, it is basically filled with farmers, farm workers and farm equipment places. So the very last thing that I expected to see, being made right there and then, as fresh as could be...........was sushi!

A local man waiting for his wife!

And it was absolutely delicious! We ate it before I could take a photograph!