Mpumalanga

Those of you who read Roland's blog will have already heard about this trip. However, the people who went were clearly divided into two groups - those who cycle and those who don't!

Let me tell you about the weekend from the latter group's point of view!

Roland, Carl, Hennie and Jason decided to embark on a mad-cap, hare-brained idea of doing a cycling tour through Mpumalanga (yes, that of Robber's Pass fame!). Much excitement in the organising, and the time for the great 'tour de mpumalanga' arrived.

Carl went down on Thursday with Roland, Caron and Jason, along with the van der Merwes. I believe their accommodation and food was fabulous that night, although I cannot comment as I was not there! The next morning the little troupe of intrepid cyclists set off and cycled an obscene amount of kms up and down some obscenely steep passes (for those of you who really care, check out Roland's blog for the graphs of the routes and profiles - I kid you not!!).

However, the jury is still out as to who had a tougher day - I left JHB at 2pm, drove solidly on my own with the kids for 5 hours through JHB traffic, rain and past accidents to arrive in Graskop after dark. Fortunately, Carl and Roland came and met me in Graskop because the last little bit would have been very confusing. Whew! So, to add to my not-so-nice afternoon, I was confronted with the fact that we were sharing a tiny little wooden chalet (read VERY NOISY!) with Jason, whom we had never met. That wasn't so much the problem as the only toilet was en suite to Jason's bedroom!!! Those of you who know me, know that I am a girl who enjoys her luxury and privacy and here I had driven through hell and high water to be confronted with neither!! Anyway, once I was over the shock, it was super to be there. And it turns out Jason is a pretty nice guy after all!

I arrived with dinner (pre-prepared bolognaise - so I couldn't even have turned around and gone back home!!) which we all wolfed down and headed for bed, after enjoying some time sitting around the fire.

The next day the cyclists set off again and after some time reappeared, claiming that the weather was terrible and they had to change their route (naffs!). Once again, if you want the low down on the cyclists, refer to Roland's blog!

Those of us who stayed behind - Dee and her kids, and me with Megs and Ali, enjoyed what the accommodation had to offer (other than the toilet which I could now freely use before Jason returned from his cycle!!).

The chalets were on a working silk farm, so we did a tour of the farm.

The biggest saving grace, however, with 4 kids on a rainy day with not much to do, was the jacuzzi!! Lovely! They wallowed for hours while Dee and I chatted and read.

Caron escaped the chaos of the kids and chose rather to drive at a snail's pace behind the cyclists - for which we wives were extremely grateful!

Once the cyclists were back we did the obligatory visit to Harrie's Pancakes in Graskop, and then had a whopper of a braai in the evening!

The next morning was a disappointment for the cyclists because they had planned to go up Long Tom Pass, but the mist was just too thick and dangerous. Instead we converged on Dullstroom for lunch and wended our weary way home wards!

I fear that Carl had a super time and that this may be the first of many such weekends!