After reluctantly leaving Hermanus (I saw another whale breaching as we left the bay), we headed along the coast towards Cape Agulhas, the southern most tip of South Africa. While we managed to see some of the coastline early on, the day became very grey wet and windy for much of the way but at Agulhas, there was clear blue sky. There’s not much at Agulhas - a lighthouse, some houses and a great chocolate cake and the coastline is quite dramatic and wild
plus its where the Indian and Atlantic oceans meet so, all in all, a pretty special place.
The weather packed it in again after we left the coast so the tarps went back down and it was onwards to Oudtshoorn, the SA home of ostrich farming since the 1870s. We even got an ostrich egg to cook for breakfast the next morning - over one litre of creamy rich egg and it would have easily fed 12+ people as 10 of us didn’t finish it. We scrambled it and it was so creamy and far tastier than normal hen eggs or even duck eggs – heartily recommend it over other eggs any day. You need to drill a hole in the +2mm shell to get the innards out and a full egg can take the weight of an 80+ kg person (we tried and tested it). The supermarkets sold ostrich eggs along with the normal chicken eggs for about £1.50 each – a bargain! How cool is that??!!
There are so many ostrich farms in the area that it would have been wrong not to visit one and before I got up close and personal with an ostrich, I thought that they were quite cute and rather endearing birds but I’ve changed my mind. I now think they’re pretty horrible, nosey, hairy, smelly, scary birds.
One of the tame ones was used to taking pellets out of peoples mouths so we all gave it a go but it was a rather stupid idea and I should have realised it would hurt after part of my thumb got jammed in her beak when she was eating out of my hand. They’re not particularly dainty birds I’ve decided
We had the option of riding one and I was well up for that so was first off the blocks – another silly idea on hindsight. The guys caught an ostrich round the neck with what looked like a shepherds crook, banged a bag over its head so it couldn’t see
then proceeded to drag it backwards by its tail
towards the dock (I can’t think of a better word!) where I’d try to get on its back (I couldn’t believe that it was letting itself be dragged backwards by its tail!).
Ostriches are surprisingly muscular underneath all the feathers and to ride them you need to climb onto its back close to the tail, hook both your legs over the top of their legs, lean back and hang onto their wings. Easier said than done, especially when there is this mega bird jittering about beneath you! The ostrich I got on was doing just that and it made me really nervous as it felt like it was just going to slam out of the gate and just go for it. Ostriches weigh between 90-150kg and the one I was on was a male so more likely to be heavier side but give me a 600kg horse any day of the week. The deal was supposed to be that once I was on the ostrich, the guys would back it out of the bale, whip the mask off its head and the ostrich would go for it but it didn’t quite work out that way. It had been raining so the ground was slippery and as the ostrich was backing out of the bale it slipped in the mud and we both went down with a bang and my leg, well, it was a cushion for the ostrich. He was fine, I wasn’t really as it was my leg (shin to be exact) that got slammed between over 100kg of ostrich (plus my weight) and the base of a concrete post. I had to untangle my legs from his, slide off his back and they said “no ostrich riding for the day, its too dangerous”. No s*it!! I was in agony, hopping round rubbing my shin, getting blood all over my trousers and trying not to make too big a fuss. As I’ve said before, there isn’t much meat on the shin for bruising but I’d managed to split my shin open quite nicely as well as give it a good bang and I didn’t even get to ride one properly! Disbelief and I’d been holding off the chocolate (not!) all these months to make the weight limit for riding.
Regardless of not riding, it was a great opportunity to get up close to the birds and they weren’t shy, particularly if you had food (thats Euan being swamped)!
They can be quite vicious apparently and quick with it, running up to 80km/hour. They can also kick forwards and are quite capable of splitting a human’s chest open with their large toenail. I’m glad now I didn’t try to get too close to that ostrich on the Cape. The babies on these farms are hatched in incubators and it takes them 12 hours to hatch, tapping away at the thick shell with this toenail they have. They then sit in the tray the eggs are in with all their mates for a few weeks until they can walk. It would have been a sight and I was disappointed that there were no eggs hatching when we were there. Ostriches mate for life and seemingly eat anything – we saw the stomach contents of one of the birds and there was a piece of metal pipe, a partially disintegrated lipstick, bottle tops, loads of wood and other more natural items. The whole visit was hugely entertaining and something that is well worth doing. I’d still like to giving riding one another go next time, hopefully when it’s a bit drier.
We also visited the Cango Caves which was a bit cringe worthy and a good example of how to ruin a natural wonder (this is an example: “you can see a stalactite forming here and normally you’d see a stalactite forming on the ground heading up to meet it. There isn’t one here because of the concrete floor”…… enough said really!) . If you’re ever in the area (Route 62) and have the chance to go, I wouldn’t bother. The scenery in this area is, however, stunning and it reminded me a lot of NZ. We went off the beaten track, took a bit of a detour through a mountain pass that went a bit pear-shaped after we came across a low rail bridge. Trucks and low bridges aren’t a good mix.
We spent hours trying almost everything to get through, even letting the tyres down, but it still wasn’t looking good and when another car came through and told us that there was another rail bridge, low trees and some hairpin bends we had to pump the tyres back up and reverse back the way we’d come. Pumping up the tyres took loads of time so we fooled around on the train tracks taking pictures of our shadows and trying to make words with our arms (Kate is an easy option but required some gymnastics for the e which saw some of us nearly contorting on the rail tracks).
We were standing on the train tracks on the bridge and every noise sounded like a train. We ended up getting down as twice I’d nearly given others near heart attacks thinking that a train was coming and, you know what, within minutes of us getting down a train went past. The funniest thing was, someone had stayed up there and was hunkered down on the tracks to set his camera up for a picture and this train came round the corner. He really had to run for it to get off the bridge and the only photo he managed to get was of dirt on the side of the track while scrambling out of the trains way. God knows what the driver was thinking.
plus its where the Indian and Atlantic oceans meet so, all in all, a pretty special place.
The weather packed it in again after we left the coast so the tarps went back down and it was onwards to Oudtshoorn, the SA home of ostrich farming since the 1870s. We even got an ostrich egg to cook for breakfast the next morning - over one litre of creamy rich egg and it would have easily fed 12+ people as 10 of us didn’t finish it. We scrambled it and it was so creamy and far tastier than normal hen eggs or even duck eggs – heartily recommend it over other eggs any day. You need to drill a hole in the +2mm shell to get the innards out and a full egg can take the weight of an 80+ kg person (we tried and tested it). The supermarkets sold ostrich eggs along with the normal chicken eggs for about £1.50 each – a bargain! How cool is that??!!
There are so many ostrich farms in the area that it would have been wrong not to visit one and before I got up close and personal with an ostrich, I thought that they were quite cute and rather endearing birds but I’ve changed my mind. I now think they’re pretty horrible, nosey, hairy, smelly, scary birds.
One of the tame ones was used to taking pellets out of peoples mouths so we all gave it a go but it was a rather stupid idea and I should have realised it would hurt after part of my thumb got jammed in her beak when she was eating out of my hand. They’re not particularly dainty birds I’ve decided
We had the option of riding one and I was well up for that so was first off the blocks – another silly idea on hindsight. The guys caught an ostrich round the neck with what looked like a shepherds crook, banged a bag over its head so it couldn’t see
then proceeded to drag it backwards by its tail
towards the dock (I can’t think of a better word!) where I’d try to get on its back (I couldn’t believe that it was letting itself be dragged backwards by its tail!).
Ostriches are surprisingly muscular underneath all the feathers and to ride them you need to climb onto its back close to the tail, hook both your legs over the top of their legs, lean back and hang onto their wings. Easier said than done, especially when there is this mega bird jittering about beneath you! The ostrich I got on was doing just that and it made me really nervous as it felt like it was just going to slam out of the gate and just go for it. Ostriches weigh between 90-150kg and the one I was on was a male so more likely to be heavier side but give me a 600kg horse any day of the week. The deal was supposed to be that once I was on the ostrich, the guys would back it out of the bale, whip the mask off its head and the ostrich would go for it but it didn’t quite work out that way. It had been raining so the ground was slippery and as the ostrich was backing out of the bale it slipped in the mud and we both went down with a bang and my leg, well, it was a cushion for the ostrich. He was fine, I wasn’t really as it was my leg (shin to be exact) that got slammed between over 100kg of ostrich (plus my weight) and the base of a concrete post. I had to untangle my legs from his, slide off his back and they said “no ostrich riding for the day, its too dangerous”. No s*it!! I was in agony, hopping round rubbing my shin, getting blood all over my trousers and trying not to make too big a fuss. As I’ve said before, there isn’t much meat on the shin for bruising but I’d managed to split my shin open quite nicely as well as give it a good bang and I didn’t even get to ride one properly! Disbelief and I’d been holding off the chocolate (not!) all these months to make the weight limit for riding.
Regardless of not riding, it was a great opportunity to get up close to the birds and they weren’t shy, particularly if you had food (thats Euan being swamped)!
They can be quite vicious apparently and quick with it, running up to 80km/hour. They can also kick forwards and are quite capable of splitting a human’s chest open with their large toenail. I’m glad now I didn’t try to get too close to that ostrich on the Cape. The babies on these farms are hatched in incubators and it takes them 12 hours to hatch, tapping away at the thick shell with this toenail they have. They then sit in the tray the eggs are in with all their mates for a few weeks until they can walk. It would have been a sight and I was disappointed that there were no eggs hatching when we were there. Ostriches mate for life and seemingly eat anything – we saw the stomach contents of one of the birds and there was a piece of metal pipe, a partially disintegrated lipstick, bottle tops, loads of wood and other more natural items. The whole visit was hugely entertaining and something that is well worth doing. I’d still like to giving riding one another go next time, hopefully when it’s a bit drier.
We also visited the Cango Caves which was a bit cringe worthy and a good example of how to ruin a natural wonder (this is an example: “you can see a stalactite forming here and normally you’d see a stalactite forming on the ground heading up to meet it. There isn’t one here because of the concrete floor”…… enough said really!) . If you’re ever in the area (Route 62) and have the chance to go, I wouldn’t bother. The scenery in this area is, however, stunning and it reminded me a lot of NZ. We went off the beaten track, took a bit of a detour through a mountain pass that went a bit pear-shaped after we came across a low rail bridge. Trucks and low bridges aren’t a good mix.
We spent hours trying almost everything to get through, even letting the tyres down, but it still wasn’t looking good and when another car came through and told us that there was another rail bridge, low trees and some hairpin bends we had to pump the tyres back up and reverse back the way we’d come. Pumping up the tyres took loads of time so we fooled around on the train tracks taking pictures of our shadows and trying to make words with our arms (Kate is an easy option but required some gymnastics for the e which saw some of us nearly contorting on the rail tracks).
We were standing on the train tracks on the bridge and every noise sounded like a train. We ended up getting down as twice I’d nearly given others near heart attacks thinking that a train was coming and, you know what, within minutes of us getting down a train went past. The funniest thing was, someone had stayed up there and was hunkered down on the tracks to set his camera up for a picture and this train came round the corner. He really had to run for it to get off the bridge and the only photo he managed to get was of dirt on the side of the track while scrambling out of the trains way. God knows what the driver was thinking.
1 comment:
Horse, Ostridge.... what next, will you ever not ride something. If it’s strong enough, Kate will ride it :)
I feel sorry for those Lamas in Peru ......:)
ladi
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