South Africa

We wanted to get to South Africa before Riles turned two (aka he flies free) and while the tickets were booked before I was even pregnant, it worked out perfectly as we returned just before the cut off where would have been too far along to fly.

As it happens, it also worked out well for my parents' plans.  They ended up getting Turks and Caicos residency and so were moving from South Africa; they emigrated the same day we left, with the house rented the next day.  So it was also "totsiens" to South Africa as home.

My photos are in disarray, below are just a few.  Check back as I hope to organize better and add more photos soon...

Riles was excited to spend some time with his uncle Tiny.  Exploring the rock pools.

 Crab holding onto Tye's knife.

Riles and GoGo got on great.  Gogo loves to read books!

The lovely dogs!  We're going to miss Molly, Charger and Max.  So much. 

Riles was fascinated by the parrot.  They played "who is the messier eater".  Bird won.

Fun license plate!  Riles can read it.

Riles absolutely adored Smungs.  They would play "I'm going to get you!" for hours. Thank you Smunga!

 These girls have moves...

 Smungs on the red carpet

We happened upon a landrover fixit place, aka Simon's heaven.  Riles thinks they are pretty cool too and now knows the difference between a 90 and 110.

We live near the wine route, and it was decided to torture the preggo lady by spending some quality time with wines and lovely goat cheeses ... Next trip I'll do naught but drink vino and chow smelly cheeses.  This had better be a cute baby.

Some pics of the wine routes.  Below is Tulbagh, where one of my best friends lived.  Then, I thought it a sleepy town with no hot guys.  Now, what a great place to go visit!  How our opinions change as we grow up. 

Traditional Cape Dutch architecture.

 

Another Tulbagh home

Lovely winery, again in Tulbagh

 The chapel

Chilling with the goats @ Fairview.  Wow my belly looks huge!

FISH!

Groot Constantia.   Built in the 1600's.

 

Seeing my good friend Fouffs.  We managed to get 8 of the old boarding school crowd together ... wonderful to see them all.  Next time will be our 20 year anniversary - how did we get so old?

 

An afternoon at the beach near Boulders, where the penguins live.

We had some quality time with Simon's family Ang and Jeremony too, and Riles was besotted.  Their lovely garden was child heaven, with a different bike in each part of the yard, a massive sandpit, plenty of patient playing, and child-size dogs.  

Si + George

Thrilled to push Annie around. Lovely tolerant Annie.

Loving the bike.

A tractor in the kitchen!  Of course.

Gorgeous garden, Ang.

Huge hit - sandpit.

Finally, a quick taste of the chaos at home.  The day we flew out the 40ft container was supposed to get picked up to take to the Turks.  Minor snarfu?  The loading truck could only load from the left, and the space near the container was on the right.  Oh, and the container weighed 35tonnes.  Some would take furniture, prized possessions, etc when leaving the counry.  My dad?  He takes rocks.  Not precious or semi-precious stones.  Just normal rocks, from the side of the road.  Big ones, think 1.5m diameter.  Why?  South Africa is old.  The rocks here are old as we don't see in Europe and North America.  "Tess, this rock has been exposed for 2 million years - where else do you see rocks with character like this?!".  

Soon, coming to a carribean island near you.

So, we have a 40 ft container weighing 35 tonnes full of 2 million year old rocks, that happens to be on the wrong side of a narrow driveway, with a huge crane that cannot pick it up.  Dad gets in a huge tow truck crane, a bunch of fenceposts on which to roll it , and gets it dragged onto the street, which we shut down for a few hours.  No worries, we're in South Africa and people just drove over the curb to drive on the grass (would you do that?  I wouldn't?!)  At 4pm it was finally loaded, 6pm we left for the airport and said goodbye to our house.  

Riles declared it his best day yet (TRUCK!  CRANE!!  TRACTOR!!!)  and slept beautifully on the plane.

The infamous container.

Truck is in to load the container.  Oops, wrong side.

Finally container nearing the entrance of the driveway.

Finally out of the yard. 

And we're loaded!

What a lovely, hectic trip!  Still more to show, but it's off to bed so stay tuned.