A ROAD TRIP TO HARTIES WITH TARYN

Taryn asked me to take some time off to spend with her while she was in SA so I decided to take 2 weeks leave and planned 2 special days for just the two of us ...

Monday 4th June ... We set off to Harties and stopped off at Jasmyn (The Windmill).  I told Jenny that we were going to be in her part of town and she said she would meet us.  We had two condensed milk coffees at Die Opstal Eethuys and then did some shopping downstairs and then made our way to French Toast ... only to find out that Taryn doesn't like french toast ... but they had a chicken mayo croissant on their menu which she really enjoyed.  We had a wonderful time and at 3pm we made our way to our next stop ... which I had kept as a surprise.

 

We drove over the bridge at Hartebeespoort Dam and were SHOCKED at how the hyacinth has taken over ... it literally looked like there was land on the left hand side and the dam wall on the other side.

Down the road we pulled into The Elephant Sanctuary and booked in.  We had to drive back down the road to the entrance of Tuskers where we were staying for the night.  We met our host Sam who was absolutely awesome.  Once we unpacked we went out again to look for some dinner.  We visited the African Craft Market at Chameleon Village which was a frightening experience ... it was closing time and the guys closest to the door were intent on selling us as much staff as possible.  Eventually a guy from a few doors down pulled Taryn out of the shop and into his where it was calm.  We had dinner at a Portuguese restaurant which was not too bad.  We went back to Tuskers where Sam built us an awesome fire and chatted to us for 2 hours about the sanctuary, the elephants and the monkeys.  We were then ready to fall into bed.

Our room

Relaxing in front of the fire

 

5 June 2018: After a good night's sleep we were up and ready for breakfast at 7am.  Sam cooked us a lovely breakfast and then walked us through to the Elephant Sanctuary where we got to brush down the elephants, walk with them and interact with these gorgeous gentle giants.

Taryn interacted with Khumba and I had the pleasure of interacting with Themba.

I got a HUGE SLOPPY kiss from Themba ...

When we were finished with our two gentle giants Charles took us to say hello to Amarula who is in a section of the property by himself.  He came from a zoo in Bloemfontein and has not yet been integrated into the family.  We were in close proximity to him and eventually he turned around and started walking directly towards us.  Charles suggested we back away as he had no food with him so it is a case of "No food, No friendship".

We sadly said goodbye to the Sanctuary and drove back through to Harties where we went up the cableway.

We walked the pathway around the mountain and looked at all the viewing sites and then decided that we would go and look for lunch somewhere else as the staff at the two restaurants at the top were all lazing around in the sun and some of them were even sleeping.  On our way back down the car stopped and we both looked at each other with huge eyes.  I phoned my hunny ... not sure what I thought he could do ... and as soon as he answered the car started moving again ... Eish!!!!!

On the left are the old cars ... Which I actually went in a number of years ago on a work function and on the right are the new fancy cars.

We stopped in at the Waffle House at Jasmyn for lunch and then wended our way home.

Thanks for two AWESOME days my angel child.  Hope you enjoyed it as much as I did.