Family R & J van de Wetering: January 2010

Happy New Year

To all our friends and family, Happy New Year! We wish you all God's blessing for 2010, may He keep you all in His care. You are all often in our thoughts & prayers.

We trust that you all had a good break! Enjoy our photos.

Lots of love, Reinier & Jo-Ellen.

(PS: if you want to 'follow our holiday' start at my Kgalagadi blog, and work your way up!)

Back in Pretoria...but not quite! We stayed for four nights at Intundla Lodge with some friends. Its about an hour from home. The lodge is owned by relatives of Chris Brand (one of our friends) who are away on holiday. So we had the WHOLE PLACE to ourselves!!!! Going on a game drive, whoohoo...

Amy is the spunkiest jack russel. Great fun! Thats her spot on the truck.

Beautiful views

Thats our chalet on the left

Looking across the dam / river towards the chalets. On the right is the pool and bar area.

The bar is built over the water

I caught a Bass, yipee!! He must have liked the little green worm lure I was using.

Drinking a cocktail Raymond made me. Ingredients: Orange Juice. Decoration: Baby marrow (zucchini) and a Frog Lure. Result: DELICIOUS!!

Reinier, Raymond, Chris

We went 4 x 4'ing up the mountain to admire the views.

Reinier with Amy.

The main house where Chris' relatives were staying.

Fishing out of the bar's windows. Why not??

I wanted to do some Barber fishing late at night and got snagged on the pole. Raymond the hero decided to row out and help me...and capsized!! I had a good laugh...

Kanoneiland / Canon Island

We stopped over in Kanoneiland and camped at Oranje Rus. It was excellent, really nice campsite.

This dish is delicious!! yum yum... "Middle Eastern Chicken" it has apricots and raisins in it. Email me if you want the recipe, i'm sure you could make it in a slow-cooker too.

**yawwwwwwn**

Morning!! Whats for brekfis?

I feel you baby!! What a weird looking bug!!

I've hooked a big one Reinier! (just joking, i'm snagged!)

Resteraunt area

White Water Rafting

On our way back we stopped at Khamkirri again for a few nights and decided to go white water rafting. Nothing terrifying or dangerous, but just really good fun!!

hee hee...way to go Reggie!! He kept yelling at me "keep rowing Joey, dont stop, I'm steering!"

Reggie?? Where's Reggie?? I think this is where I lost him, and just saw him roll off under the boat. Then I got stuck at the bottom of the small water fall, it was hilarious! The guide had to tow me out, while Reinier was watching on, safely perched on a rock.

The pro-rafters. Reinier says its all in the 'flick of the wrist'. Lots of laughs that day.

Back in-land

After spending three days at the beach in windy weather, we decided that we're not really beach-bums and prefer the bush. So we packed up and headed back in-land.

We camped for a night in a place called Klein Pella.

WOW!! A date farm in the middle of the desert...

As you keep driving through the farm, more and more date trees and vineyards keep appearing. Its a fantastic place.

We camped here right on the river. We were the only ones camping there.

Check out these huge thorns Reinier found on the ground. Pretty nasty hey!

Digging for worms...to go...FISHING!!

In the end, brown bread worked!! He caught a few ugly Barbers. They are like cockroaches in the water and will eat almost anything that smells rotten enough. But they are fun to catch, and put up a good fight.

Auugghhh!! I got out of bed for a drink of water, and spotted this on the ground. I've never leapt so far and fast onto a camping chair in my life. I think its a Red Roman, a type of insect...but i think he has EIGHT legs, and not SIX??