On Friday the 9th we headed off in rush hour traffic to the Bideou Jeugkamp in the Cederburg. A friend of Richard’s had organized the weekend and we went up with Dan, Michael and Tracy with Gary and Joelle.
The campsite itself was pretty awesome. There were a few dorms with a big hall and kitchen. (In the picture below you can see the hall in the top right.) The grounds consisted of big open fields for rugby and volleyball with a huge foofie slide into the dam.
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We arrived quite late on the Friday night so I didn’t feel up to much chilling around the fire. Richard and Michael, however, had a great evening with a bottle of sambuka. This is the pair of them with Dan the next morning, before the hangovers kicked in. |
| About a 5 minute walk away from the campsite, there is an amazing gorge cut into the rocks. The previous year some of the guys had jumped off the cliffs into the pools but they couldn’t be convinced to do it again this year. Below you can see the view looking down from the cliffs. |
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Later on Saturday afternoon, the guys played some touch rubgy and the rest of us played 30 Seconds. It was quite a challenge having a half english, half afrikaans game. After which we played some volleyball before settling down for the evening.
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On Sunday morning we walked out to the rock pools about 45 minutes from the campsite. The weather had cleared up from the rain the night before and it was a good time to hike. These are the rock paintings we found along the way. |
The pools were really beautiful and fantastically freezing! I’m glad we waited until the Sunday to see them because I’m sure the rainfall the night before would have made them more spectacular.
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We each had a very brief swim in the icy water before getting ready to head back.
The green patch in the photo on the right is the campsite as seen from the hike.
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This is Richard with stoffage, the half staffie half Sausage dog that lead us on the hike.
| It was really worth the drive to get away for the weekend, even if I didn’t get enough sleep. But it was great fun to be outside and meeting people. It was also interesting to watch the Afrikaans culture in action and great to see that it’s still so alive and well. Very alive and well indeed. :) |
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