We went up to the dairy farm at 16h00 for some fresh milk – literally straight from the hind tit, fresh as you like...yummy. The following morning all the cream had settled on the surface and I used a spoon to get at it. I haven't done that since I was a kid in Edinburgh, when we used to get our milk delivered and fought my brother and sister out of the way to bring the bottles in.
The strangest thing happened at the dairy...when was the last time you saw peacocks and geese drinking cows milk, let alone sharing the bowl with cats? You could just see that this was a daily occurence as the cats were hanging around waiting and the birds came in just before the milk was poured into a green bowl. Then it was like all hell broke out, cats, peacocks and geese scrambling to get at the white liquid, with the grey kitten getting covered in splashes and one of the black kittens standing in the bowl. Great fun to watch...Saturday 3rd
We drove through to East London for me to buy a new rod as I would go stir crazy if I had to sit on the beach for the rest of the week. In the end, it cost just over R1,000 for the rod and some sinkers and we did some shopping for basic groceries. When we arrived back at camp, we found it had half-filled with locals breaking away for the weekend, mostly from East London.
Directly in front of us were six Kiwi’s and an Irish lass from Omagh, as we found out later. A helluva storm broke out just after 16h00 and the group were sitting on the grass with nothing more than umbrellas as protection. I was quite happy to bring my camping chair into the caravan tent and watch them with some amusement while drinking beer and listening ot the Sharks playing rugby on the radio, but Steph told me to go and call them into our tent. Just in time, cos then the heavens opened up and it pissed down for five solid hours, lightning and thunder kept coming around and fading away again. The same storm must have passed over a half dozen times. Turns out that the group are all volunteers from the NZ Govt International Aid organisation, in various roles from accountant, to engineer, tourism specialist and nurse (in charge of 90 HIV+ kids) and all have travelled extensively. From the names I can remember, there was Dave (Kiwi, bookkeeper) and Sharon (Irish, tourism specialist) are married to each other, Jan (nurse, in charge of HIV+ kids – SA Govt only licences her care centre for 50 kids and she currently has 90 under her care, as the Govt keeps sending her more kids with no more resources), grizzly Ian (not sure what he does), Lindsay (engineer who apparently almost single-handedly built a community centre, only for the locals to trash it for the construction materials to be used on their little shacks, and apparently he would give you the shirt off his back), Polly (teacher, also spent a lot of time in Vietnam), and Bess (not sure what she does, only been in SA for a week).
All told, a wonderful bunch of people. We shared a few beers and a few bottles of wine and some snacks, had some great laughs and ended up being invited to stay with each of them in turn when they get back to NZ in 2yrs time. The funniest part of the evening (sorry it has to be at Bess’ expense) was when the rain had abated a little and the Kiwi’s decided they wanted to go and braai some steaks. I walked down to their fire and turned around just in time to see Bess sliding down the embankment on her arse. When I asked if she was okay, she got up and made the slide look almost intentional, walked on to her pup tent and undid the front zip looking for her headlamp. I was shining mine in the doorway to assist with some light and Bess, one hand on the umbrella and the other groping around on the floor in the near dark, ended up falling head over heels into the tent almost causing it to collapse completely. That one, she couldn’t make look like it was intentional and again I had to ask her if she was okay. Whether it was an accident, or the wine had started taking its grip, I’ll never know but I had to stop myself from laughing, though I think Bess would have found it funny too if I’d burst out.
We retired at around 22h30, Steph and I to the comfortable caravan bed, and the Kiwi’s to their pup tents.
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