11 April We got up and Martin felt a lot better which was great news so we had a quick breakfast and headed off to Augrabies Falls National Park around 8.30am. Fortunately we can exit the park from a different gate – it is always heaps nicer to be able to travel different roads each time if possible. All the roads around this region are very good gravel, but talk about dust – phew somehow or other it is managing to get in the car somewhere we will have to try and find out where to fix the problem. A good drive up to Augrabies and I never knew that it was such a huge industry in raisins in this area. There are literally thousands of grape vines and it appears mainly for raisins. Apparently it is a very big export business in the region. There are also a few vineyards in amongst the raisin farms.

We got to the park gate at around 1-2 o’clock quickly checked in and paid and then were off to the campsite to choose our spot. We were staying for 2 nights and it is a lot hotter up here getting to around 33 degrees in the hottest part of the day. We found a great spot under a lovely big tree which shaded us from the sun almost all day – terrific! You have to be quick to get the good shady spots in the game parks here in South Africa. It is always funny to see everyone coming in and choosing their spots – can take a good 10 minutes or so to both agree on where to camp! We decided to have a big sort out of our clothes as we were both carrying around far too many and some things we knew we would never wear again. At last we could finally put all of our clothes into the drawers provided for them and we will give all the discarded ones to the staff at Bushwakka on our return. We had a lovely evening, nice meal, good drinks and company – very relaxing; at last we feel that we are finally on holiday again.

12 April We had a wonderful sleep and got up early for breakfast. Time to check out the falls; apparently back in February this year they had very good rains and the falls were flooded quite a bit. A lot of the viewing points were closed to too much water and being too dangerous. We made our way towards Reception which is close to where the main part of the falls are and came upon 3 klipspringer grazing around the verandah – very lovely you don’t often manage to get this close to these guys so was super to get some nice close up photos. Even though we arrived almost 2 months after the flood there was still a heck of a lot of water going over the falls and the power of the water was immense. We went around all seven viewing points which I might add are very well done. The South Africans certainly know how to make great walkways to the viewpoints in their parks always very smart. We had a couple of drinks on the verandah before heading back to the campsite. I had noticed a washing machine in the laundry room and we certainly needed some doing! Unbelievable, only took about an hour to 2 at the most to get everything dry, won’t have to worry for a week or so now. We had a nice relaxing afternoon mainly watching the naughty vervet monkeys and baboons trying to steal food off the campers. They have became very clever and just wait around until someone makes a mistake by not watching their food for a minute and they animals are in and out with a bag of bread, apples or whatever before you know it. We also had a lot of dassies around the camp which were lovely to watch as well.

I am slowly getting up to date, sorry for the delay in getting back to you all, but up in the Kgalagadi there was no signal for alot of the time.

Love and hugs to all xxx