Magoebaskloof Meanderings

With Phalaborwa being the throbbing centre that it is, and with Calley (an ex-OTS student also doing the Mopane Mapping) wanting to experience as much of South Africa as possible, we decided to head to Magoebaskloof for the weekend.
Saturday was a late start – we played card games until 1am the night before, and both needed to send some e-mails. After a brief panic (temporarily misplaced my ipod), we eventually hit the road. The road to Tzaneen is not the most interesting but we both had a good chuckle at a sign – “Giant Baobab – 2001 years old”! Why 2001? Do not forget the 1! And after the baobabs we’d seen in Mapungubwe we were sure this might look like a baby baobab. Calley almost missed Gravelotte (she blinked!), but didn’t miss Tzaneen. From there we headed up Magoebaskloof – it really is an impressive road! My little car battled in some places it was so steep. Unfortunately no pics from going up there – there’s only one little place to pull off and it was packed… We had booked into a cute little B & B – Cherrio (I can recommend it to anyone who goes that direction – it was R150 pppn) and then my tummy was talking – loudly (it was now 2pm and I’d had nothing to eat!), so we headed into Haenertsburg. After a quick bite to eat, we went to find some family friends who live in the area.
We headed back to Cherrio - via an organic cheese farm that many people had recommended but it was closed – to watch the 2nd half of the blue bulls match (the first half was spent talking to Linda). It was freezing so we attempting to get warm in our room. Then it was back to Haenertsburg for dinner – we met Linda, Sturat and Liesel. It was really great catching up with them and as Calley said, they made us feel like family. We went to a really yummy restaurant called The Red Plate – power failure and all they made a plan and still served the most yummy food. There was also another friend of theirs there who had a pet grey wolf. We had seen it in the village earlier and it looks like a husky x alsation. She was quite skittish but let us stroke her when he was around. Then it was back home to attempt to get warm – thank goodness for hot blankets. We watched Madagascar – well Calley watched and I fell asleep within 5 minutes!
But then again, I woke up early this morning to watch the start of Comrades. After convincing myself that I did want to wake up, bundling myself up in a duvet (it was still freezing!) and walking into the cold, I realised that the door might lock itself and the idea of sitting in the freezing TV room til 8 did not appeal and my bed looked far more appealing. So I went back to bed! Breakfast was yummy! The full hog – fruit, cereals, bacon etc. The property is really pretty – they have a couple of trout fishing dams and still have some small patches of indigenous forest in between remnants of pine plantations and kiwi vines, so we went for a quick walk.
We also went horse-riding and Liesel was able to join us with her horse. An hour long outride ended up being 2 hours long. It was amazing – some pine plantation, some natural forest and some grasslands at the top of the mountain. We got amazing views and also really close to game – an impressive Nyala bull about 5m away, and some zebra that decided to join us while we were having a break. One of the horses also had a foal that they were weaning so the foal came along as well and it was very cute seeing her play. We were joined by another foal who just wanted to play and had to convince him to stay with Mom.
Lunch was at the Red Plate again – and it was just as yummy with electricity. The thought of Phalaborwa was not pleasant so we went with Liesel to look at all her animals – and there were lots – from cats and dogs (included a 3-legged one who’s other leg got munched by a leopard and a great dane) to Chinchilla’s, 4m long pythons, tarantula’s… They have a permit to hold indigenous reptiles for re-release as well but didn’t have anything then. Then it was back to Linda and Stu’s for coffee and it really took a lot to convince us to leave.
Now back in Phalaborwa, wondering how we are going to walk 15km tomorrow after the long ride today…
I’ve posted pics at: http://picasaweb.google.com/lancasterjenny/MagboebaskloofMeandering?authkey=Gv1sRgCOn0qZHpg6_BSA#