Hiking the Shipwreck Trail...Day 2

Milkwood Hut to the Treehouses - 13.5kms

In the middle of the night there was a massive thunder/rain storm and Sasha ended up in my bunk with me! But the next day we woke up to clear weather and we had a leisurely morning cooking breakfast, drinking coffee and packing up. This hut was awesome - very relaxing. Here's Ted and our open-air commode!

The milkwood hut was strategically placed so that farm animals could not get in. Here's S & T high-stepping it to get over the cow-blocker!

Then we hiked back across the massive dunes and got back to the beach:

Barefoot once again! I love these pics of the 2 of them hiking and talking...

We took our time, drew pictures in the sand....

...and explored some cool rocks.

Then we found this! It was some kind of massive bone. I think it is a whalebone maybe from the spine but we're not sure... anyone out there know?

A view of the bone from above:

We found another skeleton in the sand a ways down the beach. One of the bones became part of Ted's hiking stick.

We hit a small river around lunch time where we had to turn up and hike inland to get to the treehouses. But first we had lunch at a small cluster of cottages. This piece of equipment is part of the larger South African subset that Jeff and I refer to as a "tetanus special".

We said good-bye to the beach and started hiking up the river.

This hike was amazing. It was only about 4 miles but the scenery kept changing and it was like a totally different hike each half mile! African jungle:

Down by the river:

There were a TON of spider webs. The person in the lead was the web-sweeper and I wore quite a few of those things on my FACE. (you can imagine the screaming and dancing that went along with this...) The spiders though were like nothing we had ever seen before:

Next we were high and dry and it was some kind of high-desert environment:

Cool views:

There were some pretty large termite mounds. I poked one.... actually FULL of termites. Creepy!

And we discovered this little guy. Fortunately he didn't try to latch on to us like the dog on day 1.

Km marker 2!

There was some kind of cricket making EPIC noise. They were so loud you could barely talk over them! Finally we spotted the little thing making all the racket. They have a loose section of armor on their tails that vibrates like mad when they're making the sound. Then they'll freeze all of a sudden and the sound stops. On the whole trip we were only able to spot 2 of these guys! Even though they are loud they are extremely well camouflaged and the sound that they broadcast sounds like it's coming from everywhere all at once. Very cool insect...

Then we finally hit the Treehouses! There was an old low one and a newer high one. It was HUUUGE!! And very, very, high!

We couldn't wait to check it out:

Heading up the plank:

There was a large deck with hammocks and chairs and 2 bunk houses that each slept 8, then there was a plank bridge across to a smaller deck with another small bunk house. The kids chose the small house across the bridge. Peeking out their windows:

Walkway between the decks:

The reason they liked the smaller deck was that it had a 2nd entrance to the tree house: a very scary trap door and ladder.

Heading across their walkway to the large deck.

Climbing down:

Before dinner we took a walk and found the first treehouse. It was no-where NEAR as cool as ours... we made the right choice.

Then we hiked up to a little swimming hole and had a blast swinging off the trapeze bar and getting all the trail dust rinsed off:

The cooking area under the treehouse was sheltered and comfortable and we got busy cooking ostrich and veggie k'bobs.

Chilling before dinner:

The folks who built this treehouse get an "A" for ingenuity... this thing was rigged up in all kinds of different ways. I don't know what grade they get for safety or sustainability though... there were some pretty questionable rig-ups. Somebody call Pete Nelson... this treehouse needs an inspection!

After dinner we chilled out in the hammocks, read our book, and then settled in to sweet dreams up in the trees!

Hiking the Shipwreck Trail... Day 1

Day 1: East Beach to Milkwood hut - 8.6km
 Ready to hike!

In October of 2013 We started looking at some of the really cool trails here in South Africa. We wanted to try a "slack-packing" trail where you can hike with a day pack and all your gear gets dropped off at the next hut for you. Many of these trails are booked well over a year in advance! We picked a cool 5 night option about 2 hours north of us and I was optimistic since we were 15 months out from the Dec '14 hike date we wanted. But it turns out that our start date was already taken! We had to start one day later on a Tuesday instead, talk about planning ahead! I shelved this trip in my mind since it was so far in the future but before we knew it we were packing our backpacks! We drove up to Port Alfred, left the car at the end and got a shuttle back to the start of the hike from Dave, the trail manager. SA bucket-list item check-off: Unrestrained ride in the back of a "bakkie"!

 We hit East Beach in Port Alfred on a cool windy day and started hiking north.....

 ...and immediately hit our first SNAFU. We picked up a 5th team member. We figured this dog would eventually stop following us so we tried not to encourage him and even tried to "shoo" him back down the beach.

 And we spotted the first shipwreck! This is the remains of a tug boat that ran aground a long time ago.

 2km's down the beach we realized that we really needed to do something about the dog. We were hiking 8 km's and getting farther and farther from civilization and we didn't want the dog to be stranded on a desolate section of beach OR get shot by a farmer following us onto farmland or who knows what else. We tried to chase the dog off but it was no good. He wanted to stay with us. We had to hike 2km all the way back to East Beach. Poor Ted. He was in tears and wanted to keep the dog, find it a new home, take it to America, you name it. He was so sad and it was a bummer of a way to start the hike. The dog DID have a collar and at one point we spotted someone far off on the dock and took off running so we figured he did have an owner somewhere. He came back to us after that though and we had to have some lifeguards hold on him until we could escape back down the beach and out of sight.

 After that everyone was a little bit sad but the day was too nice to stay sad for long. We came upon some fishermen and saw them land a shark! They released it back into the ocean.

 I hope that someday the kids can appreciate the rarity of walking down an incredible beach with no people and no structures in sight! Pretty amazing in this day and age!

 Following some tracks:

 The kids were absolutely AMAZING on this trip from start to finish and loved the hike, never whined or complained once. It was very appreciated. We had planned to stop halfway and eat a picnic lunch on the beach but the wind really picked up and was whipping sand down the beach. If we had sat down we would have been sand-blasted. So we made the decision to eat a hiking lunch. The kids were like "yeah, OK...cool." And we ate an entire roaster chicken, seed crackers and hummus, carrots and fruit snacks while hiking down the beach! What a pair of rock-stars!

I was a little bit worried about navigation. Anyone who's ever hiked on a beach knows that all sand dunes pretty much look the same. The dunes in SA are HUUUUUGE and extensive and I was worried about finding the turn-off points where we would have to start looking for the trails to the huts. Dave the trail manager has it all figured out though. Anything not nailed down in SA gets taken so he's taken beach debris that no one would want and made it into make-shift markers. It reminded us of port-keys in the Harry Potter series and how they had to use something like a manky old boot so that no one would take it. On our first day the indicator that we needed to start looking for the trail to the hut was an old tire on a post about half way between the dunes and the sea:

 We started climbing. Not so easy to do in sand!

 Laughing and helping each other out:

 Once over the dune, we found a winding trail that led us over more established and vegetated dunes....

 ...and then out into farmland. My 2 guys. You can see the massive dune system behind them.

 And then we found the Milkwood Hut!

 The hut was awesome and all of our stuff was already there! There were 12 bunks with really thick mattresses, and then an outdoor firepit and an outdoor shower and toilet. The kids jumped into the shower on their own and got all de-sanded and de-sunblocked. Happy campers:

We were camping next to a game reserve and we spotted these guys checking us out:

 Game spotting:

 hogging the binocs!

 We were hungry for dinner! Salad, sausages and sweet potatoes...

And we brought our book! We are reading order of the Phoenix and I will have special memories of reading this book on this trip!

 After getting up early, driving up the coast, car shuttles, dog attachment, backtracking and lots of fresh air, we were pretty tired. We were in bed by 8:30!

The Rest of the School Year

 We got an early jump on Halloween this year.... forgetting that we are in a warmer country that is moving toward SUMMER! We carved on Sunday and they were covered in grey fuzz by Wednesday! Good thing we had back-ups! We had to carve round 2 in order to have a few on Halloween!

 Carving plus seed roasting?!? No complaints here!

 Also on the Sunday before Halloween we had a big community Barn Dance at the school! Gotta love the outfit Ted picked out for this...

 Tons of people came out for this event and it was a total blast. I had spent a few weeks dancing with the kids so they would know the dances before hand. They were great and each class got to showcase a dance that they had learned on the stage.

My awesome South African barn dancers:

 Teddy finally finished his big Solar System project! So glad we started this early... he worked so hard!

 And Jeff brought an awesome costume home from the States! I am biased, being his Mama and all, but I think he's even cuter than the real Harry Potter!

Sasha wore her Ana costume that we made for the 5k...

 And her BFF Sophie wore my Elsa costume! They had a blast together being "sisters" for the evening!

 My experiments in Kombucha have been successful. I LOVE making this stuff and it's way more delish than I thought it would be. I'm now kind of addicted!

 We had a big Kombucha tasting and SOME family members took some convincing....

 Then before we knew it, the year was over! We attended Teddy's prize giving on the last Wednesday in November:

 He had a GREAT year!

 Then it was Thanksgiving! We hosted at our house this year for all the American Expats in SA. It was a great day!

 Everyone brought a few things so it was very much a group effort and the food was awesome!

Even the toddlers thought so!

 And since everyone was there we celebrated a certain birthday since it happened to be the next day!

 Then it was time for Sasha's prize-giving:

 She was one of only 8 students in her class to get Academic Achievement (which is like honor roll) for the entire year. We are so proud of her!

 Then the last day of school came. The grade 7's left the school they had attended since 1st grade. Here in SA, High School starts at grade 8 so they are off to the big-time. There were lots of smiles, hugs and tears.

 Done with grade 3!

 I have a 4th and a 6th grader!!! How did THAT happen?!? Fortunately I get to hit the pause button now as these 2 will be in 4th and 6th for a year and a half!