Cruising the Vaal River

About an hour south of Johannesburg is the Vaal River, we were lucky enough to sneak away on a final outing before the kids started school.  We rented a houseboat for one night and loved every minute of it!
Here are Greg and Charlie checking out the cabin..

Our weather was perfect, sunny, warm and it was a Monday so the river was pretty quiet, we saw a few water skiers and a few other houseboaters but other than that we had it to ourselves.

Here are the kids on top...

Tubing was everyone's favorite activity, max speed was about 10 knots!

Kelly spent most of the time in the water unless Dad was teaching them how to do man overboard drills, everyone liked driving the boat.

We pulled in at a few places along the river, our dinner spot let us sit outside and watch a beautiful sunset.

Here's our boat moored up while we ate dinner.

Kelly took this amazing sunset picture, I can't claim the credit!

We got underway just after sunset and headed to our anchorage spot, right near Eagles Inlet, we had scoped it out earlier and thought it looked pretty easy to get in after dark.  Our CG training was handy, our anchor held on the first try, we then got to spend an amazing night on the boat.  The stars were incredible and there was even a far away lightning storm to light up the sky.  The night sounds were amazing, birds and other animals, we heard there were jackals, but we can't confirm if some of the sounds we heard were theirs!

Morning was beautiful, the kids fished a bit and we saw a bunch of Fish Eagles getting ready for breakfast.

There were incredible houses all along the river, my favorite was called the "Glass House", 3 stories high, right on the water.  I think it belongs on one of those "Justification for Higher Education" posters.

To the left it also had an amazing infinity swimming pool and a bridge to the house!

Lots of property for sale...9.5 million rand would be a little less than 1 Million US$, especially with the strong US dollar right now.  This one had a huge lawn, and a beautiful "lapa" down by the shore, that is what South Africans call a picnic pavillion.

Sadly we headed back and turned in our boat, we can't wait for a return trip, especially with friends, we can already envision a Hughes vs. Bodenhoffer (our camping buddies) houseboat race up the river!