A drive in the country part 3

Yesterday we paused our journey among the lovely wild flowers on the mountaintop. From the top of the mountain, we get glimpses of the Gamtoos River Valley, which is a very fertile farming area.

We begin to leave the flower covered mountain top, and the rolling hills on the coastal side of the road take on a barren look.

Trees are few and far between, especially indigenous ones like this pretty acacia thorn tree.

But as we decend into the valley, we begin to see signs of lush farmlands. There is a string of little farming towns running through the valley, their produce watered by irrigation from the Gamtoos River, which eventually runs into the sea through a wonderful dune field that creates miles and miles of unspoilt white beaches.

We are heading for Patensie, a delightful citrus growing area. As we descend into the valley, there is one farm that really catches the eye. The farmer has enclosed his entire orchard with netting! In the picture on the right you can see the extent of it behind the people walking along the road.

These little rural towns have a charm all their own, and Patensie is still a very clean, well organised area, with a massive citrus co-op. Trailers wait along the road verge next to an orchard, while farm workers are taken home after church on a trailer.....

By this time it was 3pm, and apart from the fruit we had eaten nothing since about 6am. We were ravenous, so imagine our delight when we saw a sign directing us to a farmstall/restaurant.

What made it even better was seeing these two beauties outside!

It turned out to be just as charming inside as it was outside......

.....and even better, they were still serving lunch, and the food was great! After the hot windy journey, it was such a treat sitting in a cute cool restaurant looking out over peaceful farmlands. The placemats were laminated pages from vintage farming magazines (Landbou Weekblad from 1960) so it was really entertaining reading the old adverts and readers letters from that era while waiting for our meal.

From there we travelled home through the valley, stopping briefly at the town of Hankey to visit the grave of Sarah Baartman.

This is a fascinating story, of a woman who was enslaved and degraded, treated as a freak in her lifetime, and whose body was recently returned to the place of her birth so that her dignity could finally be restored.

The grave is on top of a kopje (small hill) just outside town, so it offers views across Hankey. In this part of the Eastern Cape, aloes are a very typical sight.

And, as the somewhat unique sundial seen from the Kopje pointed out, it was time to head for home.

Hope you enjoyed the trip as much as we did.