Monday, August 5, 2013

Clarens and Golden Gate National Park, South Africa

Over the 4th of July weekend Paul, Piper and I took a mini road trip/vacation to Clarens, a small town about 4 hours south of Pretoria. Clarens is a cute little artsy town on the northern border of Lesotho in the Maluti mountains. Since we now live in the Southern hemisphere, we are right in the middle of winter in South Africa, but the weather was quite mild and it was a very nice drive to reach Clarens.

Upon arrival we discovered the Clarens Brewery and settled down for a lovely lunch with some tasty microbrew! Then we walked around the town and explored the art galleries and the views of the mountains.

Not sure why, but the trees and light posts have knit sweaters on! I made Paul and Piper pose with them for pictures of course.

The next day we took a drive through Golden Gate Highlands National Park, a beautiful park full of big sandstone rock structures and great views (even with the cloudy, overcast skies).



As we were driving through the park we found a friendly blacked back jackal. He put on quite a show for us with the howling and talking to his friend in the distance. 


As we drove towards the Drakensburg mountains we came upon a troupe of Baboons hanging out on the side of the road. They had babies!


Piper was such a great girl on this trip! She is a great little car rider, but after a few hours we all need a break from inside the car so we stopped at a picnic site in the park and took some fun pictures while watching the ducks in the pond. 



It was a very nice little get-away and fun to explore a new part of South Africa! We'll have to go back sometime in the spring/summer to see it when it is green.




2 comments:

Marie said...

Love your pictures Dawn! And that little Miss is just the cutest!

Unknown said...

so nice! As well as the look of Clarens, haven't been there before! Definitely on the list of places to visit :). Thanks for your beautiful posts.
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