Hanging at the Drak Shak

We had a four day weekend for Youth Day and headed for the Drakensberg Mountains and stayed near an area called Champagne Castle.  It is named for the middle peak below that looks a bit like a castle...

Our place we rented was called the Drak Shak and we LOVED it.  Just a simple comfortable house with beautiful views of the mountains.  Reminded us of the feeling of being in New Hampshire.  We played most of the board games in the cupboard and had a marathon Pictionary game! (don't ask Kelly who won)

We started our stay watching a concert at the Drakensberg Boys Choir school, the girls decided we should send Charlie there!  Charlie and I liked the gumboot dancing that they did at the end to traditional African songs, the gumboot dancing was said to have originated in the mines.

There was a nice hotel down the way and we played a great family soccer game, Greg, Charlie and I soundly defeated the girls.

It was Father's Day weekend so we treated Greg to a nice breakfast of steak & eggs and Katie and Charlie rowed him around the little lake for a bit...

Katie had started in the canoe with Kelly but Kelly was driving her bonkers so she abandoned ship and came in with us!

We headed for the local chocolate shop and devoured awesome chocolate fondue!

The beautiful flower on the table is a giant protea, the flower of South Africa, also the name of the SA national cricket team.

 We did have to watch out for the baboons, they crawled in our car at one point and Greg went flying out of the house to chase them!

The other wildlife we saw were beautiful birds at Falcon Ridge where they rescue birds of prey. At the show we enjoyed the cool owl that flew right over our heads.

We also liked the black eagle who was there then decided to go off flying, he didn't return before we departed for the day.  We were hoping he was going to attack the kid in the green coat, he was annoying all of us through the whole show.

The golf courses in South Africa are amazing and super cheap.  They also are quite empty most times. we managed to get out late on Saturday, Charlie, Greg and I.  This hole was amazing, you had to hit it over the water...I have to brag-I was the only one of the three of us to get it across....

It really felt like fall, there were leaves all over the course and beautiful colors in the trees!

Our crazy adventure was a scooter tour, where they drive you to the top of the mountain and you coast down.  I took it very slow, not wanting to hurt my ankle, Greg passed me at one point and Katie was doing figure skating tricks as she was flying down....Kelly rode with Charlie on her scooter-they were very cute together!

Happy to report survived the scooters, and were sad to leave the Drak Shack to head back to school!