Adventure 8 - Retracing our dreams

At one stage, we spent a number of consecutive holidays in Cape Town - mostly as a result of Marriage Encounter weekends and a conference.  On three of these holidays we took Sarah and Nicky with us and travelled around parts of the Western Cape as well as spending time in Cape Town itself.

I visited the squirrels in the Company Gardens and thought about those super holidays, and we visited Fairfield and spent time with the goats "for them" as well.

After we dropped Olha at the airport we went around False Bay - spending a night in Gordon's Bay - watching the sunset from the amazing cliffside B and B we found.

The view from our B and B in Gordon's Bay - amazing place but so many stairs!

The next day we spent time driving along the coast, remembering our dreams of living at Hangklip, at Rooiels and at Hermanus - 20 years ago the settlements were a lot less "sett;ed" and we dreamed of living on the edge of a cliff, overlooking the sea, being blown away by the wind.  We've never minded the Cape in winter - maybe we have been lucky and never had to live through really bad weather, but this part of the world really entranced us - mountains falling into the sea, wild rocks and a wild, fierce sea.

Looking over False Bay - beautiful beaches on a lovely day

We stopped off to look at the penguins at Betty's Bay. We had sent Benji and Emily postcards from cape Town - a beautiful mountain scene for Em and a penguin for Ben.  Nic said they fought all afternoon over the penguin postcard - now we need to send two the same!

Hermanus was a bit of a disappointment to us - so developed since the last time we visited, but we found the circular drive which took us up the hills overlooking the sea, where we had sat and looked at the whales frolicking in the waves.  No whales this time, but we sat on the hill, and felt Sarah and Nicky with us as we stared out over the water.

Looking down on Hermanus from the scenic drive

We drove back through the Hemel-En-Aarde valley, looking for the retreat centre where we had attended the Marriage Encounter International Meeting in early 1994 - It was called Volmoed - but we missed it - it would have been nice to visit.  On to Caledon and then back over Sir Lowry's Pass - not quite as much fun in our Ford Figo rental car as it would have been in our Duster.

Tea in Somerset West before we braved the traffic and drove back to the airport.  A lovely trip down memory lane - and a touch of sadness remembering the dreams of 20 years ago, the joy of Marriage Encounter before it all got too hard,  and how it felt to have our children with us all the time.