Oliewenhuis Art Museum

The thunder and lightning overnight was incredible and went on for hours. It did rain but nothing like it was in the Drakensberg.
We were awake at 6:30am and I was up first making coffee in our kitchenette on site. At 7pm we were joined by one of the peacocks that live on site and Ellie fed him some bread, although he really liked the bugs on the front of the car. We had a busy day of getting things sorted today so after a couple of coffees I disconnected our new battery to go and get it tested and I realised that the man that had fitted it in Neilspruit hadn’t fitted a deep cycle battery like I had asked and alarm bells were already ringing.
At 9am we left camp and headed back to our friend at 4x4 Megaworld to see if he could recommend somewhere to get the battery tested. He told us a place called the battery centre a few miles away and told us to ask for Reuben so we went straight there and parked in the workshop. I didn’t even have the engine turned off before the guy at the battery Center had opened the boot and pulled out our battery and stuck it in the tester.
“ so, it’s a battery and it’s good. What do you think is wrong with it” he said. So we explained that we had brought it for the caravan, chose a deep cycle one and the guy had fitted this one instead when we weren’t watching. The man in the battery centre said what we had brought is a starting battery, great for starting cars but we couldn’t use it for the caravan because it loses charge to quickly. We would need a different one.
He sold us a new AGM deep cycle battery but fitted our new starting battery in the truck as the one in the truck looked knackered so even though we didn’t need a new one in the truck yet it was on it’s way out and we didn’t waste our other new one. He gave us £15 back for our old battery and sold us the 90 aph battery at the same price as the 80 aph battery so we didn’t feel ripped off.
Finally with our power issues seemingly sorted we headed to our destination of the day, the Oliewenhuis Art Museum. This is a free contemporary art museum in the heart of Bloemfontein and we only had to pay 20p for parking. The museum and grounds are free.
It is staged in a huge Manor House with massive gardens all around. The front gardens do have a few sculptures but are mainly for picnicking and the back gardens have more sculptures and hikes. The house is where the real art is kept.
On entry we paid our 20p parking and then proceeded around the gallery. Some of the art was beautiful and some was mind boggling but some of the South African stuff on the first floor was just creepy. One of the artists had taken old family photos and made masks out of leather and thread and then stitched them over the faces of the people in the photographs. It looked like something a serial killer would do.
After the museum we wandered around the back garden and then followed the signs for a short hike where we baked ourselves.
Back at the car it was now midday and we set google and TomTom to take us to the chequers supermarket. Back at the mall I brought some beers and a big toolbox from the cheap plastics shop to store our tools. Then we went shopping and got lots of cold drinks and 4 days worth of meals. When we got to the till the lady at the checkout asked if we had a chequers card and we do but we can’t register it as we’re not South African so the lady next to us gave us her card and we got £3 off our shopping.
It had been a busy, expensive but productive day we had achieved a lot and by the time we got back to camp it was 4pm and I went swimming to cool off.
At 6pm I lit a fire mainly for atmosphere but later I would grill some halloumi on it to have with our chicken salad.
Once dinner was done we just relaxed outside the caravan watching the sun set and the stars come out.もっと詳しく