Since the last post we had left Knysna, travelled from Hogsback to Lady Grey and then on to Rhodes. Updating the blog has been difficult as the internet speed in the deep country is very slow. Often the link failed before one got going. Hopefully tonight will work.

One of the hogs of Hogsback. The photo was taken from the Swallow Tail camp site where we stayed for two nights. The facilities included a large room with an indoor barbeque where we could cook our
meals. Hogsback is a kind of a medieval England in the mountains of South Africa. A serious English country feeing to the place but almost everyone speaks Afrikaans.

The photograph above reminded us a bit of Austria. It was taken from half way up Katberg Pass. Officially the pass is a public road. In reality it would be difficult to travel it in a 2x4 vehicle. It is long and steep with lots of flood damage. Eventually we arrived at Sada and then turned back for our last night in Hogsback.

En route back to Hogsback we encountered lots and lots and lots of picture perfect scenes like the one above.
As the weather was good, I had very good radio contacts with Trevor in Bredasdorp and Rayne in Hermanus later that afternoon.

Yesterday morning we packed and took the route to Queenstown (first visit), Dortdrecht (first visit)
and Lady Grey (first visit). After a bit of a search we found the camp site of Karnemelkspruit River Resort. Both the Caravan magazine and Tracks4Africa provided the wrong coordinates. Between Dordrecht and Lady Grey we covered a few smaller but picturesque passes. One of them led to this scene of the bridge over the the Waboom River (above).

The town of Lady Grey is typical of the Eastern Cape countryside. Many English names, and a bit run down, but with lots of character. The Jouberts Pass is a steep and very scenic pass leading to the tar road to Barkly East. The picture above shows Lady Grey from quite high up. At the top of the pass one is 2241 metres above sea level.

A photograph seldom does justice to the pass itself. but here is a glimpse of Joubert Pass.

The route from Barkly East to Rhodes produces a lot of scenes like this one. After arriving in Rhodes we had quick beer at the hotel and then found accommodation in a self catering set up. It paid dividends as an hour later we were entertained by a thunderstorm. Sadly I could not erect the antenna to participate in the Radio League's Field Day. Weather permitting we will tackle Naudes Neck tomorrow.