There are signs everywhere reminding of the drought.

Water was very pleasant…around 24 celecus.

Sasha swims in a pool…with the pounding surf in the background.

I often see plants just like around Ojai.

Edda and I also went to Knysna mainly to visit their friend Pieter and his drum shop. On Fridays he has a drum jam…and it was pretty great. Probably around 10 participants at any given time.

Pieter makes the drums himself. I told him about Alden and Cali’s Hurdy Gurdies and he wants one. Pieter is also Brus’ stunt riding partner and does fire dances. You can see a video I just edited with Pieters performance at Brus’ “The Knight’s Tale” show held the end of December. Click Here to view.

I took a fall about a week ago. I’m gradually getting “back in the saddle” and back on the riding roster. Here are some pix of me.

Here I’m riding the newly restored Western Saddle!

And here I’m not back in the saddle at all.

Last weekend the family headed to the Cango Wilderness Ranch which is north of George on the other side of the mountains. The pass was impressive for sure and as soon as we crossed to the north side everything changed.

Looking back towards George from the summit.

The valley to the north where Cango is is very much like the southern central valley in California. Hot, dry and very little growth.

Cango is just out of a town called Oudtshoorn. It’s a fascinating town and I’d like to spend more time there. It clearly has the influence of early settlers with the old buildings and houses.

Cango Wildlife Ranch is a relatively small beautifully put together park. Their main gate is awesome! The grounds are delightfully laid out.

They have a diversity of animals, mostly are native to some part of South Africa. The displays are nicely designed and there seems to be a very high respect for the animals. Sasha and Megan become very popular among the beautiful birds…with the help of a little nectar the staff provided.

A Cape Buzzard

These were the largest bats I’ve ever seen. Probably 2 feet in length (as they slept.)

There was a very nice outdoor restaurant where we had lunch. It’s kept cool by a mist of water being sprayed from the ceiling. Look hard!

This is an active place. Edda and Megan take off Tuesday for a two week trip. So Brus and I are batching it with the kids. I’m teaching Megan’s lessons while she’s gone, making them into South African cowboys.

February 9th…over five weeks and there are still new adventures.

Still no rain, so the hot days seem even hotter as everything continues to dry up. Yesterday it wasn’t that hot, but it was windy. I was working on video editing in the bunkhouse (which stays delightfully cool) and ended up closing the door because the wind was blowing in dust and stuff. Today the wind is gone but in exchange it’s hot…95 plus (F.)

I continue to take folks into the forest…usually to the waterfall.

That’s my favorite ride and fortunately the favorite of most of the guests. It’s from 2 1/2 to 3+ hours round trip depending on the ability of the guests. And except for the first 1/2 mile, most of it’s in the shade of the forest, so even when it’s hot at the stable it cool(er) for most of the ride. And of course there swimming once we’re there. I have a group coming for a ride up there today at 4:00pm.

Pieter and his son went on a ride…his son was so comfortable he went to sleep!

I continue my love affair with Dinkum.
BTW notice my Cossack Riders T shirt. (Honorary Member)

It was clear that while Beauty is potentially a great horse, he wasn’t cut out to be a lead horse…at least not now and was making guiding difficult. So I’ve been riding Dinkum and we’re really getting to know each other. I’m developing a level of communication with him very much like the last horse I had at the ranch. Just a change in body position will take him from a walk to a canter. And he’s usually pretty good with neck raining. He also is very responsive to holding and petting.

Looking through Dinkum dashboard.

Down the road towards Hoekwil I’ve been seeing “Big Tree” on a sign for weeks. Today Edda and I went in for me to have a look. It’s a 800 year old Outenigua yellowwood and is 107 ft tall. The park around it is beautiful and about 10 degrees (F) cooler than on the road. Since today it’s really hot, it was a nice change.

Most of the major shopping for the house is done in George. But there are two stores that are closer.

There’s a store just a couple miles down the road.

There is a very limited stock and few people live near it.

It is a very well run little store with a nice inventory, including fresh fruits and vegetables.

It reminds me of the store in Nordland on Marrowstone Island near Port Townsend.

And like the store in Nordland, they make a great cup of coffee.

Brus and I took the kids to Friday night drum session.

That’s Pieter as in Fire Dancing Pieter

Zoya and Arian

And Brus had a good time too.

And today I went to the Hoekwil School and talked to Zoya’s class. Zoya is in the 7th grade.

Lots of the kids were barefoot. This isn’t a financial or social issue…it’s kids who like to go barefoot…like me.

A student presents the morning Bible reading.

My class was really fun. The students were lively and curious.

I gave my camera to a student named Daniel and he shot a bunch of great ones.

The class was wonderful. The school could be a set for a 1930′s movie. But the quality of their education seems good. Using a North American map I showed them where I was from and a little about America. They were interested in Native American tribes so brought some information about the Hieda and Navajo tribes and was wearing a shirt with a Hieda design.

I sang the Inuit song and Ghost Riders. They loved it and joined in on the chorus.

The other day Brus and I drove down to Mussel Bay, a big resort town.

I’ve decided not to do a two week volunteer thing at the Knysna Elephant Preserve. I’ll visit them but Edda said that I must do some exploration of other areas of South Africa and is helping me put together a trip. There’s a bus “hop on hop off” that she said would work great for me.

But that’s three weeks away and in the mean time I continue to have a wonderful time with the horses, the family and their friends.

.

I decided the boots were too hot and guess what…Converse hightops with short chaps!

Look at this…more on this later.

February 18th: I got a bit of home(sickness) today when I talked to the whole school in Hoekwil. (Last time I spoke to Zoya’s class.) This time I had a computer projector so I could show a slide show with pictures from Yellowstone, Yosemite, San Francisco, Seattle and of course Port Townsend. I was also able to show the recently completed “A Knight’s Tale” video. That was particularly cool since both Arian and Zoya were in the audience.

And of course I sang a few songs.

I learned more about the school. It is in fact a kind of private school with only 9% of the expenses coming from the government. Students pay approximately R350.00(about $35.00)/month and the balance of the expenses, about 40%, come from donations. I’ve decided to sponsor one student for a year for about $300.00 hoping to get two friends help me make the donation. There are some schools that are free, including one not far from this school. But they have very large classes (80 students) and very limited money for educational supplies.

Yesterday Amy an old friend of Edda’s and a new friend of mine drove (she drove…I still don’t want to drive on the wrong side of the road) to Oudtshoorn. The pix above is the north side of the mountains…the hot side, though yesterday it was cool.

Amy suggested we go to an Ostrich farm

An ostrich race! And yes…I too rode an ostrich!

I’d been to Oudshoorn early in my stay but didn’t have a chance to explore the town.

There are a lot of houses from the late 1800′s…just like Port Townsend.

Amy and I enjoyed a delightful dinner in one of these old buildings, having ostrich of course!

Turns out the Choo Choo does still run, though it now starts in George and runs to Mussel Bay for about a two hour trip. Amy and I went on this last week.

Unfortunately the Choo Choo train wasn’t pulling us…the fire hazard is too high for a steam engine. This is a pix of a pix that was in the Railroad museum in George.

There were also a bunch of old cars in the museum. What year and kind of car is this? I can remember when they were new!

I had one of these…an MGA. So did my friend Jock.

‘aboard!

Looking down from one of the train bridges!

In the Maritime Museum in Mussel Bay there was a model of the ship Bartolomeu Dias the first ship to the Cape of Good Hope.

(another pix of a pix)

It was built in the ’80 and actually sailed from Portugal to Mussel Bay. It was then put in the Maritime Museum. Here are a couple more pix of the boat.

A very cool old beach house.

We had lunch at a restaurant with this great view.

So the adventures continue…don’t know if I’ll do another blog before I get back to PT, but I’ll do a “wrap” then for sure.

Here are a few more pix.

Brus on his new horse Rein.

Visited the beach again and made friends.

Here’s a combo toilet/sink. Of course the sink drainage goes right into the toilet tank. Clever!

Dinkum mowing my lawn.

A friend has an old wagon.

Evening in the pasture.

March 4th: I’ve just finished a video about the horse riding experience here at Wilderness Adventures.

For the music I used a song I wrote years ago called Starflyer. It was originally written about my motorcycle and a trip we took, but with a few lyric changes it works beautifully for Wilderness Adventures.
So Click here to see Come Ride with Us.

And here’s a pix of my swimming spot…about a quarter of a mile down the road. It’s hot today and I just got back from a nice cool dip.

Here are a couple pix I took last week. Amy and I took Arian and Zoya to dinner in Wilderness. We had a great meal for sure.

And after the meal someone said (I think it was Zoya) let’s go to the beach. What a wonderful idea! So off we went…it was less than a quarter of a mile…to the wonderful beach there…one of the longest in South Africa I’m told. It was so much fun!!!!

Arian and Zoya insisted I take their pix…so here it is. You’ll just have to believe me it was on the beach.

Darryl and I were “elected” to go in first.

I think Dinkum was confused. He knew about swimming, but in the muddy water? He kept pawing the water trying to figure it out.

Darryl’s exit was quite spectacular!

After we took turns taking horses in the pond the kids decided they’d swim in it too.

At first they were quite tentative…

But then they got “into it” and it turned out to be a mud fight as well as a mud bath!

After that the only thing to do was to go to the swimming hole!

It was a very hot day…probably getting pretty close to 100 degrees F. So of course when I got really hot I’d pull the canoe up on the bank and go swimming.

Nice huh?

Last Sunday…my last day there I took a couple of outrides including a couple from Switzerland.

Dale, a photographer friend took this pix of me cantering Dinkum. I knew it was our last ride…Dinkum didn’t though.

Bye boys…
Good bye to many new friends…
Good bye to my wonderful South African family…Good bye to the horses…Good bye to Dinkum.

I got home Tuesday 40 hours after I got on the plane in George, South Africa.

And in the yard, the coming of Spring was announced by our cherry tree.

What a way to spend the Winter.
Now what? ]]> http://david-christensen.com/archives/46/feed 4 http://david-christensen.com/archives/59 http://david-christensen.com/archives/59#comments Sat, 22 Aug 2009 01:57:00 +0000 david_christensen http://david-christensen.com/?p=59 The video I made with Franklin Levinson is now on YouTube. This video is about the Skyrian horses at The Silva Project. Click here to view this video.

In the winter of 2010 I was a guide for trail rides in South Africa. Click here to see the South African blog.

From the estate, there are views to the east, south and west. Beautiful views. The estate has existed in some form for several hundred years and the main house is over 200 years old. There seems to be 25 or maybe even more acres. The grounds are lush with a mixture of natural and formal gardens.

Sylvia Steen owns the estate and is founder of The Sylva Project.

Just a short walk away, down a long set of stairs there’s the beach, lovely for swimming and in a few more steps there’s a little cantina (of course it’s not called that here) where a co-volunteer and I just had a beer. There is a little church on a little island which you can walk to. If you look closely you can see a plane coming in for a landing! (I shot this pix from the deck of Starbucks just down the street from the Silva entrance!) And on a longer walk you can cross to the other side of the bay that separates our peninsula on an old concrete walkway that has little bridges to allow for the movement of water.

The town of Kerkyra is about a 15 minute bus ride. Predictably the “old town” is the most interesting. I’ve only been there a couple of times, so there is more exploration to be done.

There are about 12 of us living and working here. There are some people who are here for an extended stay and then there are volunteers like me who are here for a relatively short time…a month or two. Most, but not all are in their 20s and come from the North America and Europe.

As it turns out, all the activities except the Kiwi farm are run here at the estate, including the horse program. The planned Equestrian Center is unfortunately still planned, with permits somewhere in the labyrinth of the Greek political system. So the equestrian part of the estate is pretty crowded. There are about 30 horses (including two Icelandics) and about 20 Skyrian horses. (See the first blog for a description of these horses.) We have two training rinks and a few short trails. The down side of this for me personally is that long trail rides probably won’t happen.

The Skyrians horses are amazing. As their pictures show, they are truly miniature horses…perfectly conformed with wonderful personalities. Of course, each horse has their own personality and I’m beginning to learn them, like Sunshine is lazy and nips and “be careful of Iggi, he eats anything.” And he did try to get my gloves out of my back pocket.

We work about six hours a day six days a week. So far my days have started with helping to feed the herd, mucking out the paddocks and a general cleanup. Then it’s on to tacking up the horses (getting them saddled) and ready for lessons. With some lessons I work with the instructor, leading the horse with young inexperienced riders. Students are as young as 3! There’s good opportunity to learn new things…like Tuesday I learned long lining. Long lining is where you control a horse with a normal bridle. The rains run through loops on a little piece of tack that is where the saddle would normally be and then on out up to 20 feet. Walking (or running) behind the horse, the trainer uses the rains and voice commands to control the horse. It’s great for working with a horse that isn’t saddle trained yet. And since most adults are too heavy for the Skyrian horses it’s a way for us to give them exercise.

My first ride was on Rodi, an Icelandic Gelding. Note I’m riding English with a “cute” little helmet…I tried to get away with out it, but…

I’ve only ridden English a couple of times before. Guess I’m gonna learn.

I’ve watched one of the instructors, Luciana work with students to improve their balance while riding. Having them close their eyes, the students move their arms, forward, backwards and upwards. I gotta try that the next time I’m riding. Luciana has said that there is no breed of horses that is better suited for working with children. I’ve also seen some of the techniques Monty Roberts (The Man Who Listens to Horses and Shy Boy) writes about.

And we’re encouraged to help in the kitchen, and since lots of neat conversation occurs there…usually with Sylvia…I’ve been enjoying that. And speaking of food it is varied and pretty good!

Since I’ve only been here about a week it’s hard to say how my job will evolve. But so far, it is interesting and challenging. I’ll put up another post in a week or two.

Here are somemore pixs.

A frisky colt…one year old.

Two Islandics

First time with a halter

My first new friend

Nap time for Perly