When we arrived back in Cape Town, after our wind farm detour, we knew we were going to hover around there for an undetermined period of time: spending family time, sorting out stuff for Trokkie and waiting patiently for corona vaccinations and car registration.
We stayed put for a day or two at Ouskip camping ground and went for a windy walk or two to the beach. When we left the campsite we decided to try our luck with a “walk-in” vaccination. We had read that certain vaccination centres might possibly administer a vaccine as a “walk-in”, if they would have had no-shows and leftover vaccines at the end of the day. Unfortunately we walked in at the wrong time of the day and we were turned away. Lucky for us, we received our sms notification just a day or two later and off we went. Our first jab done and dusted, we had to wait now for 42 days to get the next one. At least we had now an idea about the time and could better plan what to do in the meantime.
We still had some things to sort out for Trokkie: winch, repairing the holes in the fibreglass body, installing an alternator to charge the batteries when we drive around and sort out the registration, so we ended up standing at C&A Products during the following weeks for the hard graft on Trokkie. On Fridays we would leave and drive to Durbanville to spend the weekend with my sister Lut, hubbie Gerhard and niece Stefanie.
We regularly get messages from people who see Trokkie at a shopping centre and since we’ve been standing a fair amount of time at C&A Products, we had one or two visitors who were curious to see the truck inside. Eventually we spent a very nice evening with Dan and Irene and shared pizza and a bottle of wine, before they had to leave before curfew. We also met Vivian and Mark and hope to pick their brains about their travels.
As per usual in the Cape, we visited some wine farms with my sister Lut and hubbie Gerhard. We went for lunch at Babylons Toren with their beautiful and uniquely laid out gardens. It’s so cool to walk through the different parts of the gardens with charming and quirky walkways and ponds and flowerpots and insect hotels. (top 2 photos courtesy of Babylonstoren.) From a graphic designer point of view, I just love the geometric lay-out of the different parts of the garden and it reminds me of the formal castle gardens in Europe, even though these have a more rough and grunge feel with the use of natural elements to build and “dress up” the garden sections. After a leisurely walk around, we had lunch outside the beautiful greenhouse.
Another day we went for lunch to Muratie, and we had a very entertaining somelier who was more than happy to tell us all about the divine Amber who seemed to have played a quite important role at the farm. As we couldn’t resist Amber’s interesting story we bought a bottle! After a wonderful lunch with amazing views over the valley, we took a stroll around the grounds and visited the MOK gallery. Although the paintings on display were not really our choice, there was a unique little art installation of small ceramic vases: Hennie Meyer’s Vaas Kolonie. Really cool!
And of course, we couldn’t miss out on a proper mussel lunch at Den Anker, accompanied by Belgian beer. (photos courtesy of Den Anker.) The weather at the V&A Waterfront was absolutely lovely with sailing boats sliding on the water under a sparkling blue sky. What a glorious way to spend a Sunday afternoon!
One of the other Sundays we went for a lunch at the Pepper Tree in Philadelphia: an earthy, unassuming little eatery with wholesome food and a little shop with funky goods for sale. They call themselves “art stable” which is very appropriate because bales of hay replace traditional hedges and art hangs on gates, walls and doors. When we walked back to the car after lunch, we couldn’t resist popping in the other few shops that line the little road. (photos courtesy of tripadvisor pepper tree)
In this period we also introduced Lut and Gerhard to Catan. We have been playing this board game with best friends Gavin and Lee for the past 10 or so years and we are seriously addicted. (photos courtesy of Catan.) Lut and Gerhard got hooked too and when we saw the game for sale in a shop, we got it for them. Only when we got home, we realised this was a cheap Chinese knockoff so we swopped it for our older but original game. Now we carry the cheapy Chinese board in our truck. We’ve played a few times with it with Gavin and Lee and we’re getting used to this copycat game! The cheapness is in the details: the board doesn’t really fit nicely together, the print work is a bit poor, the cards slightly thinner and the houses and roads are plastic instead of wood. But the game is the same and that’s the important part! We still have fun playing it!
Back to the truck. One of our big issues has been our registration. Long story short: it has taken about 9 months but eventually we got it! We are now legit! Yeay!
We popped a bottle of champagne at Luts house to celebrate the licencing and discussed there and then how cool it would be to indeed be able to cross the border into Namibia (our first bucket list destination) and go hike the Fish River Canyon. Friends Gavin and Lee got also on board and we booked for 9 August 2021. This hike will be a big change for us as this will be the start of our- hopefully- long tour of Namibia.
As our registration was now sorted out, we knew the date for our second Covid vaccination, Fish River Canyon was booked and Charles of C&A Products was at that moment working on Gavin’s vehicle, we took a week off and disappeared to St Helena Bay and to Cederberg to see the snow.
For more photos, clips and videos follow us on
Dawdling around in Cape Town