Many of you have written to me and mentioned that you are behind in reading my blog and are trying to catch up. What I have never mentioned to you is that no matter how far behind you may be in reading my blog, I am even further behind in writing it. Due to a combination of being busy and expensive, slow, and non-existant internet access where I have been I have now reached a new record: I am now almost two full months behind in writing my blog. (And, also, as some of you may have realized, in replying to my e-mails.) I am now in Pretoria, South Africa for a few days of down time to try to plan out the last few weeks of my adventure and catch up with my writing. With any luck, there will be a new blog entry every day or two for the next few days. Also, please note that some photos have been added to Adventures in Oudtshoorn. And with that:

My first stop after Oudtshoorn was a tiny holiday village on the South African Coast appropriately named Nature's Valley. I went there to do some hiking and indeed the hiking was fabulous. My hike my first day there was a fairly typical one of the area. It started off along a beautiful beach: white sand, rippled by the wind, brushy away from the water and strewn with footprints of all sorts. As beautiful as it was, I really would not have wanted to go swimming there because the water was cold and the the shore was littered with washed-up jellyfish. As I walked along I soon came to an area where the lagoon entered into the ocean via a small (cold!) stream that I had to wade across. On the other side of the stream I had to do a bit of searching to find the trailhead that lead up to the viewpoint to which I was headed. I did eventually manage to find the path and found myself headed into the forest and away from the beach. The path lead gently up the side of a cliff and I soon found myself at the viewpoint overlooking a long stretch of ocean.

I then tried to find the path up to another viewpoint, but try as I might, I just couldn't find any trail headed in the right direction. What I found instead was a path that lead down into a small cove. It was a beautiful little area, completely deserted and cut off from the rest of the beach. I spent a few minutes there, just admiring, and thinking what a wonderful place it would have been for a picnic. I soon headed back toward the beach, but walked next to the tree-line rather than near the water. I then found another trail which lead up into and then out of the forest. Above the tree line, the hills were covered in a type of heather native to the South African Cape area called Ericas. The path had many pretty flowers and nice views. What it lacked, however, was any obvious ending point and thus, with dark clouds gathering in the sky, I headed back toward my hostel.

After enjoying the peace of Nature's Valley I headed off to a beautiful hiking town, this time up in the mountains, called Hogsback. Hogsback is rumored to be Tolkien's inspiriation for the Lord of the Rings and it is indeed very easy to imagine hobbits and elves and all other sorts of faerie creatures frolicking in the forest. The forest was thick with tall, green trees and strewn with boulders that had broken off of the above cliffs and fallen to the ground. There were brooks and bridges, waterfalls and wooden walkways. There were monkeys playing in the the trees and gaps in the forest where sunlight broke through and the ground was covered in silvery-green. From the trees hung vines and and unidentified wispy-green hanging plants everywhere that someone said must have been faerie-hair. Outside of the forest were fields full of green grass and yellow-orange centered white lilies and beautiful views of the mountains above and forest and valleys below.