This is home now..

The beautiful house we are staying in

By Night

Inside


Front Garden



Dawn view

On Sunday, at the nearby Inkwenkwezi Game Reserve, the annual Jikeleza festival was held, and our local Glen Eden Church held the Sunday service as part of the festival, in a beautiful outdoor setup.

Driving into town is a rural experience,

and with our close proximity to the beach, it feels like we are on holiday, waking up each day ‘in paradise’. So far, the weather has been great, Saturday was 30degrees with a light berg wind, today was calm and T-shirt weather.

I’m overwhelmed at the friendliness and openness of the people here. I met Nick Pike, the local fishing and surf reporter in the nearby Spar while I was shopping for a shad spoon, and that was when we went surfing together. So, I have survived my first Queensberry Bay point surf yesterday evening, with Nick & 2 other local guys, with shad jumping, dolphins chasing them, fishermen on the rocks nearby. The ocean is so alive, and I’m also glad to be..

Went fishing twice today, learning to tie knots, cast, and ‘do the knitting’, sorting out tangled line. I smell of pilchards, and although tomorrow will probably yield my first shad, I had plenty of bites, the sardines stripped off my hook. I’ve had good fishing mentors - Steve Moss, and fished with (our pastor) Graham Gernetsky this evening, who showed me how to secure a tasty pilchard onto a fat hook. One guy next to us pulled out about 5 shad in about 5 minutes, and another guy came walking down the rocks with a healthy +/- 60cm silver steenbras, I think it was. Beats the Tableview ‘fishing’ where I’ve never seen a fish pulled out in 20 years or so.

Also did some sorting out of our storage boxes in the garage, so now we can access those we may need, as well as being able to fit the surfboards, fishing rods etc into the garage. This evening, after the walking, fishing, yesterday’s surf and moving about 30 boxes around, my back is tired (tho not sore) and I’m as happy as a piggin. (a pig in mud)

Hope my next post is of a fat fish hanging out of a pan..

PS: Our cellular internet is dreadfully slow here, no 3G, just Edge, and even that is painful. I have applied for a landline & ADSL, but that may take a month or more. ( so please, no large attachments or junk emails.)

The Great Trek

Leaving the Cape, we had a leisurely drive as far as JBay, where we stayed with Muzz & Mish, had a wave with the dominee..

and watched Muzz doing his domestic thing.

Wednesday morning, en route to East London, we got the call from Ronelle, our conveyance that the transfer on the Cape Town house was through, and five minutes later!! an sms from Russell Inc, that we are the proud owners of an empty plot in Glen Stewart. God's hand in all this has been miraculous .. to think just 3 months ago we started marketing - and since then Everything - the sale, plot, plans, and all the personal interaction with buyers, conveyancers, removals etc - has been beyond what we could dream of.

View from our house

After our first night in the spacious rented house, we awoke to a beautiful dawn, with cooking waves off Queensberry point in front of us!

Tempting as it was, I had to wait for the imminent arrival of our furniture. Due to some confusion with another nearby delivery, it was only about 11am befor the offloading started, but then everything went quickly and smoothly – no damages, and we soon had our stuff installed.

Leaving Cape Town

Just 3 amazing months after putting the house on the market, we were moving. House sold to a wonderful family, a few weeks of packing, and we were A for Away. The tough part was leaving family & friends, knowing we would not see y'all as often.

Life Changers Church gave us a wonderful send-off, a picnic in Malcolm & Cecilia's garden, and on the Sunday, sent us off with encouraging words from God and prayer.

While this was happening, Afrovan from East London were loading up our belongings, and with help from Jen & Gus they managed to leave by about 4:30 pm that Sunday (27 June)

At about 5:30 the next morning, Sharon & I left, driving the Opel, the Colt with caravan, connected by 2-way radios.

J-Bay & Homecoming

J-bay was literally a blast – quite a bit of wind, but at least some of it was offshore, and in the 2 weeks we camped there, we moved around inside the municipal campsite for wind shelter.

Had delightful times with Muzz ( Murray) & Mich, much of it in the water – Muzz’s surfing has taken off, and he sez howzit to all!

He entrusted his congregation to us one Sunday where we led worship and taught – that week in Hennie’s home (kitted-out garage as the hall was unavailable).
They are a great bunch of believers, and the following week we also joined them in their regular venue, Newton Hall.


Of the surfing highlights was riding Seal Point beachbreak together, (me above) and one morning Muzz & I hit a 5am empty lineup at Supertubes just to be joined by a chuckling Andrew Selley from Josh Gen!
Hitting the road again, our last stop was at Vic Bay, a week with our friends Gareth & Lyn – Gareth’s the restaurateur at the ‘Blue Olive’ in Wilderness, great Mediteranean cuisine – don’t pass it by!

Trying to sneak in home was to no avail, as we pulled in at Bloubergstrand for a posed homecoming photo, Harold the ardent blog follower spotted us – and took this photo.

If at any time you cannot find Les & Sharon – check out this blog – it’s not called les & sharon’s travel, but travels, and this was not the end of it!

Stayed in 5 countries, drove 24 000km, camped/slept in 62 different places, including 4 different "bush/wild/on the road camping, visited 11 Game reserves/National Parks.

Thanks to all of you for reading, for the encouragement, and being a part of our adventure.

We were not alone.