Sunday, March 29. Hermanus to Swellendam.
A leisurely morning in the Birkenhead House Hotel. I had a swim before breakfast and then after breakfast we sat watching all the families on the beach, it being Sunday, for 45 minutes or so before heading off at noon.
We were sorry to leave this hotel. We filled up with petrol soon after leaving and then had a two hour journey to Swellendam. Here it took us some time to find the hotel.,the Schoone Oordt. This was a grand old mansion dating back probably to before the 1850s. And it had been lovingly restored over 23 years by Alison and her husband Richard. Our room was in the grounds: it was quite large and had a balcony looking onto trees with two comfy chairs. The room itself was a trifle dark but plenty spacious enough and the bathroom was really impressive.
We had some smoked salmon rolls on the balcony with a bottle of beer and then read. Chris had a siesta for almost an hour. Then we went across to the main house for afternoon tea where we met Allison and enjoyed sitting on the Veranda of the big house with a drink of watermelon juice and a scone
Then Chris had a swim which was very pleasant, although the sun was gradually moving off the pool. Then back to the room for a glass of wine which we had been given by mistake on the coach to Stellenbosch: it was designed for one of the expedition staff, but they one short on our coach, so we got a bag which should contain water juice but had the wine for the crew member. We went into dinner at 7:30 and had a very pleasant light meal with a very agreeable waitress. We were presented with a glass of champagne and a congratulations to me: on the form that David had had to fill up he had to put out birth dates, and someone had picked this up and decided to give us an "after birthday" celebration.
Monday, March 30. Round Swellendam.
A very civilised breakfast although I could not eat very much. We stayed in the room till about 11 am and then went to explore the town. But we did not find it really very interesting at all: the only place of interest was a very substantial Dutch Reform Church. There were also at least three other churches in the town but we found no coffee shops and we did not find the museum either.
Back in the room we read for awhile on the balcony and then went down to the pool for probably two hours and enjoyed serenity of it there and also a swim. At 4 pm we went and had some watermelon juice and a scone and had a chat with Alison again – apparently we had gone in the wrong direction for the town so we then went for a 20 minute walk in the opposite direction but even here there was not really a lot to see just some art shops and galleries - the South Africans are big on galleries.
In the afternoon I had phoned up Stephen as he had sent me birthday wishes and had a very pleasant 45 minute chat with him.
Back on the balcony, we had a glass of wine and a little snack before having a bath and dinner. Once again this proved a bit too much for me.
To get a larger photo, click on a thumbprint below
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| The building itself was a Heritage building | The front was the scenic part of it | Our balcony looked over the garden | The dining room had been a conservatory |
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| We had all our meals here | |||
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| Chris like the pool | The only architectural building in town . The rest of the town .. | ..was modem rubbish |