Six months!

We have now been on our mission for six months!  One third of the way through!!!  It seems as though the older we get the faster time goes by.  We are enjoying South Africa and the surrounding countries so much.  We love our work and the people we are meeting and working with.  During the month of August, the temple is closed for its semi-annual maintenance.  When the temple closes, the Family History Centre closes.  The first weekend we were closed, Allan and I flew to Bloemfontein to do two days of training.  We had a good turn out both days and felt the training went very well.  The second weekend, we flew to East London to do training there.  We trained about 30 people who came from all of the wards and branches of that stake.  Again, we felt we had a great turn out and a good training session.

The following Monday, we left East London in our rental car and drove down the Eastern Cape towards Cape Town.  We had beautiful weather the entire time until we were leaving Cape Town and then the rains came.  We were told that the further south you go the colder it will be.  We packed for cold weather (it is winter, after all!) and there were days we wished we had our summer clothes with us.  We were blessed with sunshine for nearly our entire trip!!

The following pictures show some of the things we saw and experienced during this trip.  Unfortunately, we didn't take pictures during our training sessions.  When we arrive to do these trainings we hit the ground running and are so busy setting up and getting things ready to go that we never think to get the camera.  So, please note that even though we have no photographic proof - we do actually work!!

Between the two training sessions we drove over to Pilanesburg and spent a couple of days driving through the national park there.

We were lucky enough to see these beautiful lions - seeing the big cats is pretty rare.  

I guess you could call this a "smile"!  This guy was HUGE!!

A couple of views of one of the watering holes.  

This leopard was just laying by the side of the road.  When we stopped, he got up and ambled across the road in front of us.  This was the first leopard we had seen.  We saw another one later in the day walking up a hill.  They are just exquisite!!

A little out of focus but you can see her really large horn.  A picture of her and her baby is right after the cute baby elephant.

This looks like a smile to me.  This cutie was eating away - which is what elephants do for the better part of every day.

Here is the baby rhino......so cute!!!

Our first night on the road we stayed at the Dung Beetle River Lodge and these bananas were from their tree.  

This was one of the many residents of the Addo Elephant Sanctuary.  Some of the critters were a little closer than others.

A day in the tree tops.  This was a "Canopy Tour" Zip line.  What fun to zip through the forest from ancient trees.  Some of the trees were 800+ years old.

We had a blast!!  I don't know if you can tell from the picture how careful they are to protect the trees and forest.  No cable touches the trees.  They are padded to prevent damage.  

An interesting plant!  This was just prior to our fulfilling one of my "have-to-do" things.  We are at the Plettenburg Bay Elephant Sanctuary.  They have five elephants and all are orphaned or have been injured.  They keep them until they can take care of themselves and then they go to one of the nature reserves.  Most of their elephants are young in elephant years.

YES!  I finally get to have my elephant ride.  It wasn't very long - just enough to get the experience.  That is a good thing because you have to spread your legs so far apart to sit on one of this guys.  If it had been a really long ride, I probably wouldn't have been able to walk the next day!!

I love how they hold each others tail.  

 

The end of the trail.
These gentlemen are so amazing with the animals.  You can see that the elephants are loved and cared for.

The beaches along what is called the "Garden Route" are beautiful.  I loved the look of these plants in the sand.   This particular beach was at Nature Valley.  If you want a place with no technology (TV, Wifi, etc) this is the place to go.  At least, in our B&B we were without those things.  That was okay with us and we spent a lot of our time while we were there on the beaches walking in the surf.

Knysna, South Africa!  These pictures just do not do justice to how beautiful this place is.  

Beautiful ocean water!  The colors were amazing!!

Had we had more time, we would have hiked up to that building on the cliff.  It is a restaurant!

 

On Sunday, we had our lunch in the park at the bottom of the cliff.

Calm seas with several sailboats out.
The next day it was extremely windy and we watched while huge waves crashed on the rocks.  So much power!!!

Next stop - Oudtshoorn and the Cango Caves!

 

Again, the pictues cannot begin to capture the beauty of this place.

The southernmost tip of Africa - Cape Agulhas.  This is still a functioning lighthouse

Cape Agulhas is where the Indian Ocean and the Atlantic Ocean come together.

On to Cape Town and Boulder Beach where we watched African Penguins.

These guys aren't very big but they were fun to watch.

Baboons can be seen along the highways and byways and in towns along the Eastern Cape and Western Cape.  This sign was in the Cape Town area.  If you aren't careful, they will steal things from your car or out of your hands.

Another of my "have-to-do" things!  Visit the Cape of Good Hope.  Another very windy day - that's me in my scarf trying not to look like I had been in a blender.

Part of the area of Cape Town.  Really nice city - clean and modern.  I'm sure they have their shanty towns but we did not see them.

We drove up north from Cape Town to the West Coast National Park.  During August and September they have these fields bursting with flowers.

Hard to describe how beautiful this place is.  Besides the yellow and white there was dark pink, purple and lavender flowers.  We were really glad we were there in time to see this.

The botanical garden in Cape Town.  This is a Protea blossom.  Proteas are the national flower of South Africa.

These Protea flowers come in different sizes and colors.

One of thousands of Bird-of-Paradise blossoms.

Another great day!  We enjoyed lunch on the terrace of the restaurant in the gardens and were entertained by African drummers.

The following day was Sunday and our last day on our trip down the coast.  On Sunday, just as church was finishing, the rains came.  We had a major down pour!  The rain is needed and wanted.  Normally, it rains everyday in August.  This was the first rain we had encountered.
We flew back to Johannesburg from Cape Town on Monday.  We train again for one day and then we will drive over to Swaziland to meet up with Allan's brother and family.   One more week and the temple and family history centre will open again and we start our normal routine.  This has been a fun and fulfilling month but we are ready to get back to what we normally do.