Tuesday 8th February, 2011
Hawkston Farm, Midlands (between Durban and Jo’burg)
We survived 3 dives at Sodwana - enjoying the warmer water, the
hard coral and the leisurely atmosphere at the Sodwana Bay Lodge…in fact we
stayed 2 extra nights! After negotiating the surf in our RIB (Rigid Inflatable
Boat) on the way out to the reefs, we took off the life-vests and geared up for
the dive…with a backward roll into the heavy rip we dived to 15m into a world
of turtles, colourful coral, rays, weird but wonderful fish…and all in 28
degrees C…it was lovely! We met some lovely locals at dinner who invited us to
stay over at their farm on the way back to Pretoria. We took them up on the
offer and lobbed in at Hawkston Farm, near Howick, which is between Durban and
Jo’Burg on the N3 a couple of nights ago.
With the high altitude, the scenery of the English Midlands and
the local Zulu culture we are loving being here for a few days…their farm has
sheep, ducks, horses, 2 lovely Rhodesian Ridgeback dogs who smooch us and a
cute little miniature dachshund! Only 25m from our thatched cottage is a lake
filled with trout. What a country of
contrasts!
Today was spent wallowing in the English style countryside
seeing local artisans with our first stop at the local coffee roasters for a
genuine cappuccino and lunch, then on to a canvas bag maker and on to the
weavers making rugs on looms and then finishing our day (navigating +++) to the
Mzansi Zulu Quilt Centre to see their beautiful patchwork quilts and
fabrics!
Elisabeth teaches the local Zulu men and women how to make
patchwork quilts and they earn 80% of the proceeds of the sale to then buy a
sewing machine and pay for electricity and water from the profit. The local Rotary groups also support them. They are truly perfect pieces of work – see
our linked photo! Naturally we bought a
few pieces!!! Web page: www.quiltsafaris.com
