Off to South Africa 2018

We began the day by walking up to the pub (Dullstroom Inn) for breakfast, where we were the only ones there - Monday’s are very quiet, in sharp contrast to the weekend.  The typical “full English breakfast” was fine - and filling - but not quite the gourmet fare we enjoyed yesterday.  Cheaper, though. After breakfast we decided to take a scenic drive.  In addition to its status as fly fishing capital, Dullstroom is also located along the “Highland Meander” - at least that’s what the road signs tell us.  It is a beautiful area with mountains, craggy rock cliffs (and some excellent boulders that John wants to bring home for landscaping), and impressive viewpoints. Lots of wildflowers (including lilies growing wild along the roadsides - but the roads were too narrow to stop and take pictures) - And amid the spectacular scenery are equally spectacular potholes that frequently prevented John from enjoying the scenery as much as I did.  There were also many heavily lo...

Today we opted for a nice, restful day in Dullstroom. Last night we had dinner at a nearby restaurant, Mrs. Simpson’s (as in Wallis Simpson, for the love of whom King George VI abdicated the throne).  We asked our server/restaurant proprietor for recommendations for places to eat breakfast, and she strongly suggested a place called the Art of Food. Not your average Pancake House - creative gourmet fare, indeed, including starter courses before the “mains.”  I’ll spare you pictures of all we ate (although I took them!), but here are the amazing scotch eggs (served on a slab of slate) we both chose for the main course: I’ve always wondered what scotch eggs are - here they are boiled eggs (we requested hard boiled - they’re usually soft), carefully peeled, dipped in batter and then breadcrumbs, and deep fried.  Delicious!  That’s crisp fried Parmesan cheese separating the two halves, with bacon to top it all off. We also enjoyed talking to the owner, whose son is planni...

We made it!  We arrived on schedule at Johannesburg’s O. R. Tambo Airport (John’s suitcase was the first on the carousel!), got our rental car (a Toyota Rav 4), plugged in our portable GPS with the new chip for South Africa, and headed out on our way.  Thank goodness for the GPS, because we seemed to be stuck on the “scenic route” getting out of the city, and even when we finally found ourselves out in the rural countryside en route to our first stop in Dullstroom, we weren’t sure we were on the correct freeway until we finally spotted a familiar coal-fired power plant off in the distance. A very long three hour drive brought us to Dullstroom, a quiet little town generally referred to as the fly fishing capital of Africa, and the charming Peace Corner lodging where we stayed when we were here three years ago. This is the perfect place to relax and recover from jet lag - while our plane seats were spacious and folded out flat for sleeping, neither of us can sleep much on a plan...

Since we got our plane tickets with frequent flier miles, our options were limited and a little strange - no problem getting round trip tickets from LA to Johannesburg via Doha, Qatar, on Qatar Airlines, but we couldn’t get the connection to and from either Portland or Eugene.  What we could get was a cheap car rental from Corvallis to LAX, so we began our vacation with a West Coast road trip.   First stop was Napa, where we met our friends Anne-Louise and Mike Bennett from Reno and enjoyed Napa Valley champagne tasting (Mumms) and catching up.  We also visited historical sites in the Sonoma, including the Petaluma Adobe - And the Sonoma mission (what remains) - The old military barracks - And a few other buildings around the town square. Our journey also took us to San Luis Obispo, and then to Calabasas for a great visit with my cousin Tom and his wife Reeny and son Jeff.  From there we headed for the airport, dropped off the rental car, and boarded the plane for a ...