Camera Woes at Pilgrim's Rest (Halloween Edition)

Last week when we were traveling in Mpumalanga, our trusty Canon camera started acting very funny.  It all started in the old cemetery in Pilgrim's Rest, an old gold mining town in the mountains of Mpumalanga. The town was established in a gold rush in the 1870s.   (Don't think of the California or the Alaska gold rushes here.  This numbered in the thousands of miners not tens of thousands.)  The town was an active mining community until the 1970s, when the mining company gave it to the government, which turned it into a minor tourist attraction (some might say trap.)

This is the Robber's Grave.  Legend has it that an unknown man was caught and convicted of tent robbery and subsequently banished.   A few days after his trial the thief was spotted on  a hill, now known as Cemetery Hill. where he was shot, killed and buried.  They buried him in a north-south orientation (all the others in the cemetery lie east-west) so he would forever be branded as a thief.

Anyway back to the story about the camera, I took some photos in the town and the camera worked fine, however, after I took the picture of the robber's grave, everything went screwy.  See for yourself.

A photo of Quince and two doppelgängers in the Pilgrim's Rest Graveyard

Picnic in the Park

A couple of Sunday's ago Quince and I went to Zoo Lake for Afsaneh's birthday picnic. Picnics at the park are huge here.

We were surrounded by groups of picnickers with blankets spread out and portable braais(grills). More than once a soccer ball flew into our gathering from families playing nearby. There were all kinds of roaming vendors hawking their wares: toys, hanging decorations, balls.

Anyone want to buy a kite?

 But the best were the young men carrying their massage tables offering 10 minute massages. At least 6 people from our group took advantage.

20 minutes massage--$10

Afsaneh and family had arrived early and claimed one of the patio-like areas covered by an overhead trellis, which she covered with sheets to supplement the shade provided by the vines. They set up tables with beautiful linens for the fantastic food everyone brought - sushi, platters of Mediterranean fare, cheeses on par with what Matt McGuire has treated us to, baskets of chewy bread, and my award winning guacamole and acclaimed black-eyed pea coleslaw. And plenty of wine and juice (juice is a favored drink here - it is common to bring a couple of boxes (tetrapak type) of juice when you go to someone's house for dinner).

Being of Persian origin, Afsaneh laid out 5 beautiful carpets for the guests to lounge and picnic on. The boys played a rousing soccer match against the men. The men were in their 40's and up, and in jeans and nice shoes not prepared for soccer. But much to the boys' shame, the men won 1-0.

The weather was perfect - sunny and in the high 70's - like most days here. The conversation was good - many of the women I had met on my Sunday morning walks with Tanya and Afsaneh. And the food, as described above, was scrumdillyumptios. I'm not really a picnic loving person, but this was just a perfect way to spend a Sunday afternoon.

Geocaching in Mpumalanga

Midterm Break
The kids had a midterm break this past week.  It was short, Quince's school week ended on Wednesday and she was back in school on the following Tuesday, while Alexander went an extra half-day on Thursday.  (Alexander has gone to school a total of 1.5 days longer than Quince this term and he is counting.)   We drove about 4 hours away to Mpumulanga Province for 5 days and 4 nights of site-seeing and vacation.

Mac Mac Falls in Mpumulanga

Geocaching
This past spring we were introduced to the sport of "geocaching" by Jessica, Matt, Emma and Jackson.  The way it works is someone hides a "cache" somewhere and marks its location with GPS coordinates placed on a website.  Other people visit these websites and enter the coordinates into their GPS and then go look for the "cache".  Typically the "cache" is some type of water proof container.  I have seen metal ammo boxes, cylindrical plastic containers, tupperware, and film canisters.  Inside the cache is a logbook, a pencil, and some loot.  Once you find the cache you fill out the logbook, exchange the loot with loot that you have brought along for the occasion and return the cache to its hidden location.  You have to do this without given the position of the cache to muggles who might just raid the cache and not return it to its rightful location.  If you want to learn more about geocaching and what you need to get started go to this link.

Alexander Looking for the Cache

There's an App for That.
There is a geocaching app for the iPhone which we used to identify the nearby caches.  The app displays the location of the cache and the phone on a map.  More useful is the compass which directs you which heading to follow and how close you are to the cache.  The exciting part about using a 3G iPhone is that the compass barely works.  With my phone you get the added excitement of the battery running out quickly so you can only use the app sparingly.  One time we even took our Garmin GPS from the car and set it to walking mode.  As a geocaching tool it wasn't particularly useful as it wanted us to stick to the marked roads, but it was very satisfying to hear it say "Arriving at destination" when we reached the geocache.

We Found It!

How we rolled
On our last full day in Mpumalanga we took a driving trip up the Blyde River Canyon to see the scenery.  It reminded me of driving trips that I made with my family growing up.  (I think the MacLeod/Hopkins tended to linger a little longer at the locations than the MacLeods did.)  When we arrived at a location we would check to see if there were any caches nearby.  If there were, we would go out to find one.  The neat thing about geocaching is that gives the kids a goal, an objective, a destination!  Alexander especially pushes on to the find the cache.  Next thing we know, we are taking a hike, exploring, finding giant grasshoppers (the grow them big here!), looking at scat.  The complaints, "Do I have to get out of the car?" "Why do we have to stop here?" and ill humors dissolve and disappear as we set out on our mission.

Next steps
The next stage in our geocaching adventure is to plant our own cache.  We have purchased the container and a supply of loot. We want to place it near our home in a public park. We will do this in the next month or so.

What a cute family.  Can you help us with a nickname?

Help!
Help us come up with our family geocaching nickname.  We spent some time on this in the car and got nowhere, but I think we need more brain cells thinking about this.  If you have any ideas for our family nickname please add them to the comments.  (If you can't get comments to work, then e-mail us and we will place them in the comments.)

In the category of I created this map because I could and aren't links great here is a Google Map of Geocaches that We Found in Mpumalanga.

Quince at St. Teresa's Spring Concert 2010

Check out this video of Quince at her school's Spring Concert. She is an earthworm singing about the joys of composting.

Alexander Play Field Hockey

Alexander recently posted a video on his blog of him playing field hockey last month. Caroline filmed it and Alexander edited it. Check it out!

Alexander Playing Field Hockey

Quince's First Playdate in South Africa

Gugu came over last Friday afternoon and the girls were non-stop. They had tea. They made mugs. They swam. They packed food for and hung out at the pretend beach. They read. They washed hair. And they rested.

43 Eighth Street Parkhurst

I love our house. It is bright and airy and modern and clean and has water features and tile floors and plenty of closet space and big bathrooms. I am coming to appreciate all these things more and more because I am looking at other houses to rent that have a bit bigger garden (yard), and nothing is measuring up. We signed a lease on this house just until 30 November knowing we would want a slightly bigger house (4 bedrooms so we have a guest room for all you visitors), and a bigger yard so the kids can actually play outside. And our landlords are selling this house so we must move. Please put your good thoughts out into the universe that the right house will appear for us.

Quince Made the St. Teresa's Swim Squad!!

I promise to snap and post some pics from her first Gala (what we would call a swim meet) in November.