Cape Town & Cape of Good Hope

Flew into Cape Town this morning to sunshine all around but Table Mountain clouded in. Spent a sunny afternoon out at Cape of Good Hope and came back to amazing views of Table Mountain and the Twelve Apostles - and the unfortunate news that the cable car to the top of table mountain is closed for renovations. Had some great sunset drinks and delicious dinner. Tomorrow we're off for two days in the Stellenbosch wine country and then back in Cape Town before the sad journey home.

Hiking the Wild Coast

Lovely amazing hike the last 3 days. We hiked on or very near the beach the entire time, stayed in nice little huts. Got back to our hostel midday today and lounged, surfed, and whale watched. Weather has been fantastic. We're enjoying some relaxation and time out of the car.

Checking in from the Wild Coast

Finally have some wifi for the first time in a week and a half. Since Swaziland we spent 3 days in Kruger National Park and managed to see all of the big 5. Lions, leopard, elephant, rhino, buffalo + giraffe, zebra and all sorts of other neat stuff. In the wild. Weather has been fantastic and this evening we completed our 3600 kilometer loop, dropped the rental car off in johannesburg and flew to east London. We're headed out on a 3 day backpacking trip along the beach tomorrow morning.

Hello from Swaziland

Hello!

We've had no access to internet, and are now at an internet cafe very quickly, so no picutes.

We've continued to enjoy the trip! Since last time...kayak safari'd with crocs and hippos, watched humpback whale migration (50+), two scuba dives in Sodwana Bay (great!), swimming with wild dolphins, and now in the country of Swaziland, staying on a wild game reserve and did an all day mountain bike safari today. Tomorrow we're off to Kruger National Park for three days of self-drive safari and then off to the Wild Coast for backpacking along the beach. I won't be surprised if we don't have internet for another week. Beautiful countires and having a great time with Ash & Steven. We could use a bigger car. ;)

xoxo

-M&M

Sunrise over Botswana

We made it to South Africa! Spent the last two days in Lesotho and now in the Drakensberg mountains. Not going to be much Internet, but enjoying ourselves, gorgeous scenery.

South Africa: We're off

We leave Friday afternoon for a 24 day trip - our longest trip yet together. We get the priviledge of traveling with Ashley & Steven yet again. We'll be mainly in South Africa, but also spending two days each in tiny Lesotho & Swaziland. Lucky A&S are already off playing in Germany, to my deep jealousy. I expect that we often will not have internet, so will try to post some quick pictures to the blog as I can, but it may be infrequently.

Friday, July 06, 2012: Flight to NYC, spend the night

Saturday, July 07, 2012: Morning in NYC, 15 hour flight to Johannesburg
Sunday, July 08, 2012: Meet A&S, pick up rental car, head to Lesotho (one of the landlocked countries within South Africa)
Monday, July 09, 2012: Hike & explore Lesotho
Tuesday, July 10, 2012- Thursday, July 12, 2012: Drakensberg Mountains of South Africa, hiking
Friday, July 13, 2012: St Lucia on the Elephant Coast. Kayak Safari.
Saturday, July 14, 2012: Scuba diving Sodwana Bay on the Elephant Coast
Sunday, July 15, 2012: Swaziland, another one of the countries within South Africa. Mountain bike safari and cultural tour
Monday, July 16, 2012: Swaziland
Tuesday, July 17, 2012 - Thursday, July 19, 2012: Kruger National Game Park. Safari. Lions and tigers and elephants, oh my!
Friday, July 20, 2012: Drive the Panorama Route from Kruger back to Johannesburg, flight to East London
Saturday, July 21, 2012- Monday, July 23, 2012: Backpacking the Wild Coast
Tuesday, July 24, 2012: Cape Town
Wednesday, July 25, 2012 - Thursday, July 26, 2012: Stellenbosch, wine country
Friday, July 27, 2012: Cape Town
Saturday, July 28, 2012: Cape town and depart
Sunday, July 29, 2012: Home, via Lagos, Nigeria and Houston, Texas

Evasive Mt Hood - a weekend of lawn games

We had grand plans for the last weekend in June. One of the large NW volcanoes we had yet to climb is Mt. Hood. It’s pointy peak has always appealed to me, so this spring we decided to block out a weekend for it. It’s supposed to be best mid-April through mid-June and we decided to push the envelope a bit by choosing the last weekend in June. I’m all for improving your chances of sunshine. Somewhere along the line L&V signed up to attempt the climb with us, and somewhere else down the line I found a good deal at a nice ‘Resort’ right near the trailhead and decided it would be nice to have a place to lay our heads at for a few hours before waking at mid-night to begin the climb, and nice to not have to drive 4.5 hours back to Seattle after the climb. It’s a good thing we booked somewhere nice.

The climb is about 6,000 feet of elevation gain, and while not actually technical has some challenging parts. The plan was to be climbing by about 1am Saturday morning, and hopefully down around lunchtime. Elevation tops out at about 11,240.

Hood on our drive home from Bend last year - a better day

Hood from Portland in May

The weather wasn’t looking promising all last week, but it wasn’t bad enough that we wanted to bag the whole thing, so Friday afternoon we packed up the car with loads of mountaineering gear and made our way to Mt. Hood. About halfway down we got a call back from the ranger station Matt had left a message at earlier in the day. The helpful ranger explained that there was 50ft visibility at the 7,500ft  level and they were expecting storms the next morning. Logic says visibility would get worse not better going up, so we made the decision then and there that Friday night/Saturday morning was not going to happen. While bummed, we were thrilled we hadn’t planned on camping or staying at motel six. I was burned out from working too much the past few weeks, so we resigned ourselves to enjoying a relaxing weekend.

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The Resort at the Mountain was not luxurious, but perfectly nice and had all sorts of fun activities to keep us busy. We hung out in the hot tub, played 18 holes of mini golf, learned to play croquet, Matt & Val took advantage of the fitness center, and we all availed ourselves of the Swedish steam room.

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Croquet course

Val egging Matt on, surprise

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Nice form

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lining it up

guess who?

Saturday we made a pilgrimage up to the Timberline Lodge up at Hood. It’s a pretty cool property, built by the WPA during the depression and had a lot of love put into it. We wandered, looked at some of the historical displays, and then had lunch. The entire time, we had not one glimpse of anything but the very lowest reaches of the mountain. It was depressing, but reassuring the we had made the right choice.

theoretically, there is a mountain there

Timeberline lodge

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staring down the mountain

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also staring down the mountain

Climbers Trail. looks delightful, no? 

All around, it was nothing like we planned but a fun and relaxing get away. We’re off to South Africa in a mere 5 days. I have loads of work, laundry, and packing to do before then but if I get a chance, I’ll put an itinerary up for you!

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Dinner at El Burro Loco

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