Maselspoort Day 2 - Bloemfontain

We were up with the birds at 6:30am, it was already warm and after a couple of coffees I decided to go for a run around the camp, I knocked up 5.6km and when I was done at 8am I was sweating buckets and it was already 27°c so I jumped straight in the pool.
By 9:30am I was dressed and we were ready for action and we wanted to go to the outdoor warehouse today in Bloemfontein to get some extra guide ropes for our tarp but before that we were heading for the national botanical gardens.
We had been warned off of Bloemfontein and lots of people said just drive around it, there’s nothing there and it’s crappy but we found it to be completely the opposite. Sure, it’s not a holiday destination but there are things to see like the gardens, an art museum and an armour museum and there’s a few major retail parks so if you are passing through and needed something your sure to find it.
We took the tar road into town passing the South African Air Force Base on the way, we cut right through the town and it seemed quite up market with some big houses, nice cars and a good mix of black and white people.
We arrived at the National Botanical Gardens at 10:30am and paid the £2 entry fee. It was a beautiful day and there’s lots of information about the plants and trees and it is divided up into sections like medicinal plants, succulents, and grasslands. The place is huge and a brick walkway weaves its way around 1/3 of it for wheelchair access but the rest is just tracks through woods and around ponds.
We spotted a tortoise and he was the largest wild tortoise we had ever seen and then we found the bird hide overlooking the lake, but there was nothing of real interest there.
We left just after 11:30am as it was now well into the 30’s temperature wise and we needed to go to the outdoor warehouse before they closed.
We drove through the town centre again and it still felt quite safe for a town and at the outdoor warehouse they didn’t have the guidelines we wanted but it wasn’t a waisted trip because we went food shopping in chequers and got the next 4 days worth of food as our next stop is totally off grid.
We got back to camp at 2pm and we were surprised to see 1 Motorhome at the opposite end of camp. We had a cup of tea and then went swimming and when we were in the pool another Motorhome turned up, then another and then 3 more. By the time they had finished coming in there was a fleet of 20 all driven by Americans who had hired them and they are following their tour guide who is British in his Motorhome. We were no longer alone, but luckily they are mainly older people so there will be no parties later.
At 5pm I started to Braai and we had ostrich burgers and corn on the cob. Then we just chilled at camp until we went to bed at 8pm.Читать далее