Tsitsikama and Storms River

I had a nice stay at Pletenbergbaai at the beach during the day and parked at the Wittedrift .NG  Church courtesy of DS Du Preez for two nights. I left on Saturday morning. I stopped at Keurbooms  beach for breakfast and met Lee the owner of the only snack shack at this beach. It's  a beautiful village overlooking the ocean.
After breakfast I drove to Nature's Valley and spent the rest of the day watching the other tourists swimming in the river and reading. Later on I went for a walk on the beach. Late afternoon I left this Paradise to search for a night camp. I stopped at Nature's Valley campground to enquire about their prices for camping.  They changed R260.00 per day for two persons way to much for me. Further on not far from the campground is the Rangers camp and offences,I stopped there and asked the Ranger if I could park their for the nite. Although he was friendly the man said no. He explained to me that it was against the law to camp in a National Forests and that I could get a fine if I decided to do so. I accepted his explanation and did not say anything about the peopeI I met in the Knysna Forest, they live their permanently, off the grit and only go to town to get necessitys.
I found a campground at the Storms River Koi-Sun Village thats not bad. They charged R140.00 per ningt for two person's. I said that I'm traveling alone and paid only R70.00 for the night with electricity. I had to wash my clouths and enjoined a nice shower before leaving late Sunday evening to search for a nice free camp for the night.

Spending the day on Leisure Island

How lucky can I be.
After a restless night close to the Knysna Lagoon,not that it was unsafe but because of all the mosquitoes  I decided to move on.
I left the town and after only a short drife on the N2 I took the turn off to the Knysna Heads to the right. The road is narrow and a bit bumpy but a easy drive with the camper, would've been a different story with the bus.
Not to far on the road to the Heads I came to the turn off to Leisure Isle and decided to go and see how the Super Rich live on the Island.
I'm overwhelmed and amazed .... The place is beautiful with aqua marine sea water surrounding the Island. Some people where enjoying the cool water with almost no waves.
Million dollar mansions are everywhere you look with spectacular views of the lagoon and the Knysna Heads. One can see into some of the houses through the panoramic windows, every detail inside speaks of class and money lots of money.
As I drove slowly past some of the residents on their morning walk, I realized that my old camper must have looked totally out of place here,it being a old ambulance I converted year's ago.
And then, what do you know there it was a picnic area just for me at the waters edge, to spent the day at my LEISURE, with a million dollar view.

Expensive diesel cap

I left Hartenbos river resort yesterday morning after I made arrangements to pickup the trailer later on when I pass by agane. It's easier to wild camp without the trailer.
After leaving the camp I drove to the Midas shop in Voorbaai to buy a diesel cap for the camper and a headlight bulb. They had a bulb at but not the diesel cap, so I bought the bulb for R60,00 and went to their other store in Mosselbay to get the diesel cap but they also don't keep truck spares. They advised me to drive to GP Spares in George so that's what I did. And yes they had the rite diesel cap but very expensive at R359.00 and no it's not made of gold. I decided to buy the cap because I don't want to loose another tank of diesel to thiefs or to water in the diesel. As I walked back to the camper I noticed something dripping from under the bonnet of the camper. I kneeled at the camper and took some on my finger to see what it was and it was diesel. After a bit more investigating I found that the diesel filter was leaking at the water trap. So back into the store for a new diesel filter, that set me back a another R100,00 for the day.
I left George and ended up at Wildenis beach for lunch and a walk on the beach. It's a nice place to spent the day but it's  not my kind place for wild camping because of the beach bar and restaurant. I drove to Buffels Baai and thought it might be the place but after a hour the wind picked up and it started to rain so I left. I got on to the N2 and remembered that we once visited the Knysna forest years ago and decided to see where the turn off leads me. I ended up at the Goudveld Farleigh Indigenous Forest for the night. I parked the camper and relaxed for some time before I went to bed at 22h00. I woke up at 5h30 this morning listening to hundreds of birds singing in the forest.

Packing up our campingspot

Anita and the children left yesterday for our home in Grootvlei and I spent the day doing nothing. No not entirely nothing I spent the day tracking their progress on the tablet and worrying about their safety on their 1200km journey back home. I was very relief  to hear that they arrived home safely today after a sleep over at Colesberg  the half way mark.
I started my day this morning by cleaning the big white tent we use for our patio.  The tent stood under a pine tree and was covered with bird droppings,so I had to scrub the big roof with a  broom and left it to dry in the sun.

I packed it in the trailer with all our other camping gear later on. I finished up around four with packing and then decided to drive in to Mosselbay with the camper for some groceries and other stuff I will need for my free camp expedition that I am undertaking for the next month or so. 
I stoped at the 
Agri shop and refueled the camper with diesel at 
R10.00 p/l its nice to see the price of fuel coming down so fast.
After all the shopping I drove to the point and had a lovely dinner of roasted chicken and salad  over looking the bay as the sun set over the sea.

Hartenbos 2014

Our spot at Hartenbos beach resort.

This is how close we are camping to the beach. At the ATKV beach resort Hartenbos block E. 

Aluschka and Boeta.

b Karla 
Boeta and me having fun.

a Anita and 
Boeta covering Karla with sand.

Regard and Pascal came to the sweetstall to visit with 
Tony our oldest sun and Boeta our lastborn.

Tannie 
Anitjie and myself posing for a photo.

Karla making a rare apearince at the sweetstall.

Our annual trek down to Hartenbos .

We desided to travel down to
Hartenbos this year with the 
Iveco to save money.
We spend alot of money on our new house.

The view from our site of Mosselbay

Our camp at Hartenbos 50 steps frome the beach. 
At R120 a day.

l

Boeta and I spending some qwality time on the beach.

m


Anita and the children playing in the sand.

The fritge is having a hard time keeping our food fresh in this heat so I 
installed two 12v computer fans behind the ventelator of the fritge to  that runs of our solar.

It's been a very existing three month's.

It's been a very busy thee month's  since  I last posted on my blog.
In the meantime we traveled from Weesgerus holiday resort to Rantfontein where we stayed with family for a week, before setting of to Botswana for ten day's, working. We decided to leave the bus in Rantfontein and instead, travel over the border with the Iveco motor home. By doing this we saved  a lot of money not only on diesel but also we did not had to pay for a cross border permit for the Iveco because it's not a commercial vehicle like our bus conversion.
A ten day trip with the Iveco turned into a six week trip touring the Northern Cape.
Wile on this trip, friends told us of some houses going on a auction In the town of Grootvlei a hundred kilometres or so from Johanesburg.  Anita and I talked to the children about bidding on a house we all liked.  And it was decided that it would be a good idea to do so. The day of the auction our friend did the bidding on our behalf  because we where on the other side of the country and that's how we became the proud owners of a house that we only saw on photos send to us by friends.
We arrived at the house three week's after the auction, although the house needed a lot of work we where exited to start with the renovation .
We decided to stay in the bus while renovating the house, so I parked the bus in the front yard and hooked up the cable for the electricity and we settled in for a time of hard work.
We first had to take out the old hard wood floors that was damaged. We all worked very hard removing the old floors, every one had blisters and cuts, sore knees and fingers after doing work we are not use to. We replaced the old wood floors that must have been beautiful in there day with lamented wood floors that's also hard wearing and almost as beautiful as the original wood floors.
After the floors were done and after a very good cleaning of the rest of the house that took several day's we moved our furniture and other belongings into the house and out of storage.
The storage of our worldly "rubbish" or belongings as Anita likes to call it, cost us R12000,00 for the two years we stored it this time. The previous time we stored it for ten years and it cost us more money than I care to remember. We are almost done with the big stuff and even the garden is starting to look better already.
That's all for now folks.
Cheers Karel.

Weesgerus Holiday Resort

We reluctantly  left "Die Eiland" Holiday Resort on Friday morning for our next perfect stop over at "Weesgerus" holiday resort just a few kilometers from Nylsroom on the Vaalwater road. We drove 260km on this day,I decided to take the route that took us through Mojadji gorge and Mooketsi to Polokwane on to Potgietersrus (Makopane) and Naboomspruit (Mookgophong). This route is not nearly as mountainous as the more direct route through Magoebas gorge and the town of Haenertsburg. I have travelled this raod many times in the past and knows it well. We stopped for breakfast at the the Shell Ultracity on the N1  before resuming our journey. This road is a two lane highway and is a toll road all the way to Gauging and beyond, very expensive to travel on with the bus but so convenient.
We arrived at Nylstroom (Modimole) in the afternoon and refueled the bus at less than R14.00 per liter for a change. We drove to the resort and after checking in at the reception went off in search of our not so perfect spot. The camping site the lady at reception allocated to us after seeing our bus and decided that it's to big was way to far from the recreational area with no other campers nearby. So off to the office we went in the small bus to state our case. The lady understood and gave us a list of empty sites that we could choose from much closer to the pool area. I decided on a site that we could fit the bus in and set up camp. The camp filled up during the afternoon and we relaxed at the campfire while the children went for a swim in the heated pools.
Saturday morning we went to the local shopping mall to buy some necessities.
On our way back we stopped at the site where the English Commanders setup a concentration camp to keep the women and children during the English invasion and war against the two Afrikaner Republic's. It is heart breaking to see all the hundreds off graves many of them being those of young children that died dew to the lack off enough food and shelter in the harsh African climate. During this the second time that England made war here against the Transvaal Republic and the Republic of the Orange Free State, thousands of women and children died in these concentration camps. Some say it is the forgotten genocide of the Afrikaner people by the mighty British empire. Sadly it is part of our Afrikaner history, a important  part of history my children need to known about.