Christmas is long gone and we have been left in its wake.  We had a very festive time with Tom's family who had come from near and far - a cattle farm in the Drakensberg, Zimbabwe and London.  We partied for four exhausting days.

     
Some photos taken during this time. In case you are wondering, some emergency deck furniture maintenance had to be carried out on the day (Ryan supervising).

The lack of research due to the chaos prior to leaving left us with a few problems once we arrived. Unlike previous visits to South Africa we had problems using our MasterCard to withdraw cash from a linked savings account. This was eventually resolved by depositing money in a debit card which we luckily had brought with.

Something else that didn't even cross our minds was the need of an International Drivers Licence. SA does not require one but it will be necessary in Europe.  Hats off to RACQ who did their thing quickly and the licences have already arrived in Cape Town.

Tom and I found some more birds up river including the majestic African Fish Eagle and the collared kingfisher.

I have had some requests for more of Ann’s exquisite artwork (apologies for the reflection in one and some distortion in another.)

Our five weeks in beautiful Kleinemonde was a very special time spent with family and friends.  We were spoilt with fresh fish on the table at least twice a week and Ann and Tom cooked and we washed – a sensible division of labour!

Some random images of our time here:

Tom ordered and purchased his coffin (the pink dolphin) from the Coffin Makers of Ghana, whilst on a trip there.  They don’t stop at dolphins when making coffins!  Jenny discovered this baby boxfish on the beach – minus a tail. We saw this Zimbabwe gentleman spending his Christmas selling his large carved spoons, feather dusters and other stuff on the beach while kite surfers took to the sea when the wind was right.

I managed to catch a couple dancing 'music-less' on the beach while Jenny and I found this trunkfish (basically a pygmy sunfish) on the beach. This is a fairly rare find and Tom will take it to the South African Institute for Aquatic Biodiversity (formally the JLB Smith Institute) in Grahamstown where it will likely be exhibited in their museum.

Unfortunately, South Africa has recently become very strict about tourists staying longer than three months (they obviously don’t need our tourist money) so we have to leave by the end of February, sooner than we anticipated which has necessitated a rethink of our schedule. If you are coming here and want to stay longer than 90 days start applying at Home Affairs soon after you arrive.

We set off on our road trip a week ago, starting with the Hogsback a few hours north of Kleinemonde – that’s for the next blog.

We’ll leave you with the view we saw as we sat on the deck having Christmas lunch.