Our field trip!

This weekend my car earned its keep. We drove nearly 300km, mostly just wandering around.

We spent Saturday at my brother's place in Seapoint, Cape Town - just vegging and having a gigantic brunch, then recovering. We also got to watch the video of the baby scan that revealed my brother & wife will be having a son - Ethan Bainbridge, second name still to be discussed. He's a cute enough little bugger, nice and see-through on the scan! :) The funniest thing was when the lady doing the scanning did a colour change on a front view of his face - he flashed green, blue, red, yellow with a see-through skull - looked totally like something out of X-files. Needless to say my son's glad his first cousin will not be a girl...

And then Sunday struck. I had a bit of a road-trip / explore planned as a suprise for my son. We headed out early to Franschhoek, a half-hour's drive from here, nestled in the mountains. We wandered the Hugenot monument, the tree-lined (and breakfast-run biker lined) streets and then wound up at the place I was REALLY there for - Hugenot Fine Chocolates. Hand-made, absolutely heavenly and probably the most expensive chocolates in South Africa. We bought 4 little ones each, and I got a tiny box of 3 for the mega-boss here to say thanks for things he's done recently to make my working life easier. Very, very yum.

From there we took the backroads through mountains toward Wellington, another 1/2 hour or so drive, then hit the main Cape Town / Cairo road (though rather nearer Cape Town than Cairo) to head back home. With the car threatening overheating (it is an '82 Ford Sierra afer all!), we stopped off at Butterfly World to talk to their miniature goats, but not to see the butterflies, as they were kinda costly and we'd already used up our cash on chocolates. A cooled car and a straight run from there and we were home within an hour.

It was a change of scene from our usual Sundays - much better than doing washing and cleaning and stuff. Though I still had washing to do anyway when we got back. It was great to just hang out with my son, travel a bit, see new places, explore roads we've only looked down and do some different stuff.

Our next trip is planned! We'll head to Betty's Bay and attempt sliding down the HUGE sand-dune there, perhaps stop off in Hermanus or explore the nearby lakes. Another trip will be to the southernmost point of Africa at Agulhas, a mere 2 hours drive from here. Deserted beaches, collectable shells.

While we still can, we're going to see the sights around here. Even if I don't know what the future holds, we're going to enjoy each day as it comes NOW.