De Rust/Meieringspoort Marathon.

Great excitement in our little village this weekend.

The annual  marathon has just finished. The village is buzzing with about  4000 people. All the accommodation establishments are full; the locals open their houses to take in the overflow.

Great excitement for our three girls as our house is on the route. We are about 1km from the finish. We sat outside on the side walk eating breakfast and cheering the runners/walkers on. There were over 1500 entries for both the 10km and 21km races.

They run through the beautiful Meieringspoort for about 19,5km and then enter the village. The route is absolutely flat... until they turn into the village. The last kilometre is up hill for about 900metres and then downhill for the last 100 metres. 

The girls learned some new Afrikaans words from one of our neigbours, "Amper daar" - "Almost there." They were clapping and cheering the runners on. Quite cute.

Great carnival atmosphere at the finishing point with refreshment stalls doing crazy business.

Kathryn helped at one of the tea/coffee stalls yesterday.

Next week we have the Pioneer Classic, a big mountain bike race. I will be helping out at one of the water points along the route.

Time Flies.

Almost a year ago we were planning a trip to visit our friends, John and Dorothy, in Montreal. Unfortunately our visas were denied.

Then in March of this year we did a trip to St Francis Bay via Matatiele where we stayed a week with an old friend of mine, Nicky Maartens. We spent three months in St Francis looking after a Bed and Breakfast business for friends of ours who went to the UK to visit family. A working holiday for me but great fun for the whole family.

During the three months we visited Kathryn's uncle and aunt on a farm in De Rust, first for a long weekend and the on our way back home for a week. It snowed one night and we woke up at 3:30 in the morning to a white world. We got our three girls out of bed, dressed them up warmly and went outside. They had never seen snow before. What excitement! We built a snow man and had a snow ball fight. Then inside for some hot choc and coffee. The girls were too excited to go back to sleep and so we all stayed up and watched the sunrise.

That visit to De Rust got us to finally make up our minds concerning a decision we had been putting off for some time. Move back into the country. De Rust was the place. We went back home packed up and were back in De Rust at the end of July. What a great decision. We are loving it. Such a beautiful little hamlet. Peaceful and safe, especially for our young daughters. Hey the locals even leave their cars parked out in the street all night... not even locked.

More later. The reason we felt to move to De Rust.