Executive Summary

- Visited Hahndorf South Australia, or the Amana Colonies, Iowa, equivalent in South Africa

- Can add 'springbok' to my list of strange and exotic foods eaten

- Further to that, there are many different types of Biltong, not all good

- South African sparkling wine could use some improvement

- Finally the jet lag subsides

After breakfast at the guest house and a stroll around the gardens we headed off back to Jo'burg. We stopped by a butcher highly recommended for its biltong (a sort of beef jerky - but more stringy and with a different flavour) on the way and Dad loaded up on his favourite childhood treats.

Ian and Jackie wanted to show us Parys (pronounced Paris) so we took a slightly longer route back. Parys is like Hahndorf or the Amanas - a quaint little village with lots of antique shops and German (or in this case dutch/Afrikaans) type cakes. So, all in all not very interesting other than it was a contrast to Jo'burg and Welkom, being a predominantly white town relatively speaking with more of a touristy bent and less electric fencing.

I had a ginger beer and played with my camera.

Finally got back to Jo'burg and had a rest before dinner. This was the big dinner and farewell, with Ian and Jackie, Jackie's son and wife, friends of Ian and Jackie, and another family that was a connection from Dad's past. Mark Hesnes was linked to the mission and his family took my Dad and his siblings in after grandparents' death. Dad and Mark caught up before dinner and had a long chat. The Hesnes family were very lovely people and quite interesting to speak with. Jackie's son and wife were also great fun - being an Englishman in South Africa we talked about cricket and rugby for a great portion of the evening. It was a nice change of pace from the rather stoic start to the trip.