or Karen and Duncan (+70 friends) take over a small town.

This weekend is kind of hazy for me, and not just because it was almost three weeks ago, so please excuse the fragmented post.

I remember it was a long weekend and we were going to stay over for two nights. So we’d left early on the Saturday, on the highway headed east, dodging people who had gotten their licenses in Narnia, and those that were in a hurry to get to their holiday destination or meet their maker (they didn’t seem able to make up their minds). Trying to squeeze past aficionados of deep fried fat and all things greasy on our way to the next cup of caffeine at various petrol stations. Showing teeth while double-o super sexy made its very slow way up the hills.

Finally at Kaapsche Hoop, Karen hops into super sexy and shows us to our accommodation. We pass a small bar with a bright sign on the outside. She says, “That’s Salvadore’s everyone was there last night”, her tone seems to suggest that they may not have put it back together yet.

Our accommodation, Long Creek Lodge, rocks. Its clean, has beautifulI views, and it even has monogramed lamp shades – not my initials, but cool nonetheless.

I remember the wedding day being a riot of color, sound, glitter, lots and lots of confetti, mist, disco balls, magic, strange people in elvis outfits, mist, a man dressed as a reindeer, Dr Quinn medicine woman, jaeger bombs, men in kilts, and lots and lots of mist. I remember eating roast chicken off a Springbok Hit Parade (vol 4 I think?) record, and not recognizing a single name on the record label. There were also some dreadlocked horses and really huge pancakes filled with milk tart for breakfast. It was chaos, the good kind, the kind that you talk about for years, the kind that the locals talk about for years.

We snuck out early on the Monday, being very mindful of the fact that most people had still been awake a couple of hours earlier, and that hangovers were probably just starting to kick in, there was mist everywhere, the streets were strewn with confetti, I suspect that we will still be finding confetti in various parts of our camera bags for years to come.

We kind of think of Dunc and Punk as friends, so it seems a bit odd saying that they were cool to hang out with and we had an incredible time, and that we will be talking about this one for a while. Start a party indeed.

ok, so you want to see some pics, yeah?

almost ready for a blog post for this one … slowly recovering and getting on top of things.

watching the dreadlocked horses of Kaapsche Hoop fade in and out of the mist …

It was V’s birthday again, seems to come every year these days, and we headed out east to Mpumalanga. V wanted to see God’s Window again, for sentimental reasons and I wanted to see a baobab. So off we drove and joined the tourists queuing outside the usual attractions, did all the touristy things you’d expect to do at that end of the world, we saw the pinnacle, God’s Window, ate pancakes in Graskop, checked out the robber’s grave in Pilgrims Rest, Mac Mac Falls, took photos of sunsets and some of the most over photographed spots in South Africa. You name it, we did it, we even contributed to the local economy and bought some curios. The mists had rolled in on one of the coldest, rainiest weekends this year, so it was perfect weather for photography. No baobab though, so the search continues.

We did stay in a seriously cool country lodge called Hamilton Parks Country Lodge, located between Hazyview and Whiteriver, in one of the biggest four poster beds I’ve ever been in. At one point I woke up and V was sleeping perpendicular to me. Amazing venue and the kind of service I thought had vanished from these parts. If you end up there ask for Brenda who is a total rockstar.

Just two pics, you don’t really want to see pics from my vacation.