Garden Route Day 2

 On the second day of the trip I woke up before dawn so that I could go on the whale cruise. I wasn't the only one, about six others got up around 6 too. I just figured I might as well try to do as many things as I could, and besides, I could sleep on the plane! Unfortunately, Keith told us that the seas were too rough, and the worst thing you could do is try to sail along the southern tip of South Africa in rough seas. South Africa is known for its shipwrecks because of the dangerous currents and rocks. Everyone else went back to sleep, but I didn't want to go back to sleep for an hour. Once I'm up I'm pretty much awake for the day. I walked down to the beach about a block away and took some pictures of the sunrise. This is the longest beach in the Southern Hemisphere.









The land out to the right there is the southernmost tip where we were the night before. We were still really close.

 This is the inside of the place where we stayed the night. It was really nice! They let each group that stays there sign the walls, so we did. Kaitlin drew the words, and we signed all around it.













We've left our mark for future winter school students! We also found where the 2009 and 2010 American winter school students had signed.

After breakfast they led us on a short walk along the beach. This is the group! Although we had already been together for over a month, we got to know each other really well over the course of this week. We left the coast and drove inland a bit to the Little Karoo desert. We stopped at Warmwaterburg (that's really its name) which is another hot spring in the Karoo. While some people went swimming, the rest of us watched the rugby finals inside on a big screen TV at the springs. The Crusaders (who beat the Stormers the other day) were playing the Queensland Reds who actually ended up winning.


 After Warmwaterburg we drove on to Oudtschoorn, which is a town famous for its ostriches. We got to feed the ostriches and take a tour of the farm. Some of the lighter girls were able to ride them! I learned a lot about ostriches. Aparantly there are three main types: red, blue, and the most common black. The black ostrich feathers are the most valuable. An ostrich egg can take up to 250 lbs of weight, and we all got to stand on one!

Next they took us to the Cango Endangered Wildlife Ranch, which is just outside of Oudtschoorn. It's a sort of zoo, but not really. A guide takes you from exhibit to exhibit and explains about the animals. This is a pygmy hippo. He's the size of a large dog, but full grown!

 Yeah, I really got to do this! Those are baby cheetahs. They were purring the whole time!















After the cheetahs we had some free time to explore, and my and my friend Jillian found an exhibit where you could walk with a loose wallaby! He was really friendly.

Unfortunately the bus left while we were doing that! The lady who ran the zoo called Lawrence, who had already realized we weren't there and was coming back for us. She gave us one of the zoo's fliers to hold and took pictures of us with it while we waited about ten minutes for the bus to come back for us. Everyone on the bus liked our sign!





We stayed overnight in Oudtschoorn. The lodge had a really nice outdoor fireplace, and the braaied ostrich steak and ostrich kebabs for us. Ostrich meat is really healthy for you. It has basically no cholesterol. It's really lean, and it tastes delicious!