Sunday in Hamilton

As it was Sunday, we joined our family at church this morning. Our rental car has been resting here in Hamilton for a couple of days so we took it off to the Gateway Church for an outing and also because we wanted to buy another car charger for our cell phones. (The one I bought in South Africa didn't work.)

 We were warmly welcomed into the church and the kids and parents got bar-coded for Kid's Church.

In the entrance was a very effective chalk drawing of the three wise men.

My six year old grandson decided to stroke the camels, smearing some of the chalk lines before one of the welcome stewards stopped him.

The church reminded us a lot of our home church, Rosebank Union. It is a well attended church with enthusiastic but sincere worship and friendly people. After the service we got chatting to somebody called Jamie who told us he was a Member of Parliament and welcomed us to New Zealand on behalf of the Prime Minister.

After lunch we went to a Christmas Tree Farm to get the tree the family had pre-booked.

In a tree quite close to ours was a little nest with two small cream and brown eggs.

The tree was cut for us while we waited and we bought a stand that secures the tree as well as providing a reservoir of water.

At Kmart we got to scan our own purchases and use our world currency card for the first time, not without a little trepidation.
We also found out that trollies are called trundlers in New Zealand.

Tomorrow we head off to Auckland for three days to do a sightseeing bus tour. We are taking a little tent, camping chairs, a blow up mattress and a few odds and ends for our trip to Northland after that. The adventure begins.

Road Trip Day 9. Trompsburg and Philopollis

I found out this morning it wasn't a bomb-scare, it was a fire.

"3 injured in Bloemfontein mall fire

Three people were inured after a fire broke out at a Bloemfontein shopping mall this afternoon. Pictures: ER24

Three people were left injured this afternoon when a fire broke out at a shopping mall in the Brandwag area in Bloemfontein, ER 24 said in a statement.

Russel Meiring, spokesperson for ER24, said that the company’s paramedics, along with the fire services, arrived at the mall and found that a large fire had broken out.

“Fire fighters began to battle the blaze and evacuate the mall while paramedics began assessing the patients on the scene. Three patients were assessed by paramedics. Two were found to have sustained minor injuries while a third, a security guard, had sustained more serious injuries. It is believed that the guard had sustained his injuries while attempting to extinguish the blaze,” Meiring said.

He added that paramedics treated the patients and thereafter transported them to Mediclinic Bloemfontein for further treatment."

My  first impression of Tom's Place was negative. It looked old and run-down and deserted. When we first arrived we parked near an ablution block that didn't impress me at all. It looked like the public toilets you get at a popular beach. Just as we were about to plug in our electricity, one of the workers came by in a truck and redirected us to another site and showed us which ablution we had been given keys for. It was our own private bathroom with shower, toilet, basin and a table. It was clean, the water was hot and there was even soap provided in the shower.
I've had to revise my opinion. We had everything we needed. Part of what made me think it was run-down was the dry grass.  We are such Colonialists. Our idea of a garden is lush green grass. Let's face it. This is Africa not soggy England. I decided to use the gimp to see the effect green grass would make.

We had breakfast at the restaurant (yummy) and then headed towards Gariep.  Having googled Edenburg and Trompsburg for things to see without any exciting results, we decided to head for Philippolis as recommended by our daughter. The road was good and (added bonus) quiet. We had a lovely drive to Philippolis although we knew the two options to get to Gariep from there are a) along 45km of gravel road or b) about 100km to Colesburg and then backtrack to Gariep.

Going through Trompsburg, we came across a delightful side-of -the-road coffee shop called The Water Wheel.

No sooner had we stopped than a Mercedes pulled up behind us. The driver was very interested in our motor-home. Aged 77 years, he is a missionary and wants to go to Namibia on a fact-finding trip to see if it is a place in need of the gospel. He has done something similar in Mozambique and then left the thriving ministry to younger people who continued with it and a large number of disciple groups have been established. He asked if we wanted to sell Cubby.  He even suggested that we stay with his wife while he takes Cubby for 10 days. We assured him that if God wanted him to go, He would provide all his needs. (I hope we weren't meant to be the provision). We prayed for him before he drove off.

Back to the business in hand, we bought two homemade ice cream tubs and sat near the water wheel to enjoy them.

We arrived at Philippolis at 1.45pm, just too late to get lunch at one of the restaurants, and just about everything else it seemed was closed.

We drove through town, hoping to see an antiques shop t hat our daughter had mentioned. Brian saw a brown signboard with Kanon Gastehuis and some symbols including a tent so we thought "why not stay in Philippolis tonight instead of Gariep?" We recognised the name as the guesthouse where Mandy and Steven had stayed so we used the GPS to find it. We phoned the number on the board outside and explained that our daughter had stayed there (and had said we must try to to visit Philippolis) and that we were looking for somewhere to park for the night. Gerda, the proprietress, was so kind. She said we could stay in the guesthouse for what we normally pay at a caravan park. She was so friendly and accommodating. We now have the luxury of coolness (it is 33 degrees outside), space and all the luxuries of a guest house including coffee and rusks, shower, fridge with ice and cold water and a table to work at.

I would totally recommend this place to anybody who wishes to stop over at Philippolis.

It's almost sunset now and a bit cooler so we are going to see the canon nearby. Also nearby is a transport museum with old trucks and other vehicles.

I'll talk about some of the history of Philippolis in tomorrow's post.