AWESOME! Apologies to those who have told me how envious they are of our adventure, (believe me, I know how lucky we are!!) but this weekend has been amazing.

We drove up the West Coast on Saturday morning, covering around 200kms to eventually get to Patermoster, an old fishing village. On the way we stopped off at the West Coast National Park, with the intention of viewing the spring flower display and doing a bit of walking. We did both these things, but the most exciting and unexpected thing was the game viewing. We saw: wilderbeest, gemsbok, bontebok and eland (all kinds of deer / antelope of varying sizes), ostrich, wild tortoises, vast millipedes and huge furry caterpillars, several species of birds of prey including eagles, kites and last night, a huge and beautiful owl, sunbirds, weaver birds..... and finally something I've never seen before - Cape mountain zebra. Just like ordinary zebra, but with brown and cream stripes. The pictures above are self explanatory apart from the one of the weaver birds nests dangling from the bougainvillea outside the bedroon window of our B&B.

The weather was glorious - first real weekend in spring, and already it's warming up. The girls eventually made it into the Langebaan lagoon, a huge sheltered stretch of water with an immaculate beach - but it's still the Atlantic Ocean! After swimming, rock climbing and generally messing about for a couple of hours, we headed a little further north to Paternoster, our B&B, and dinner in a restaurant right on the beach. Watched a spectacular sunset and then came back to the guest house for a dip in the hot tub and a chance to marvel at the vast and very dark South African sky, bursting with stars.

This morning, after watching the frantic nest building of the weaver birds from the comfort of our bed, we had breakfast and set off for Langebaan and the national park again, this time via the Columbine lighthouse. We stayed here an hour so Lottie and Elizabeth could scramble over the rocks, though we were almost blown away: the Atlantic pounds the rocks savagely on this exposed headland.

We walked the 9.5km hiking trail up to Seeberg point, a granite outcrop with wonderful views of the lagoon. Neil mused that the view reminded him of the north of Scotland - not that I've seen such a benign stretch of water in the Highlands. Not many ostrich up there either. On the hike we disturbed a large male ostrich as we rounded a bend. As they can be very nasty when threatened we stood still and after a few moments of staring at one another he set off at a gentle trot.

Neil has been poetic in his comparisons with the UK this weekend. Much of the route along the R27 up the coast is very flat: Cape Town comes a big surprise when driving south as the mountains suddenly rear up ahead of you. Occasionally there are huge rock formations and small hills with cairns on top. 'Rather like Salisbury Plain' said Neil!

And so the spring flowers. To see them at their magnificent best, you need to head further north, and this year the dry winter has dampened the display a bit, but even so the countryside is very attractive, dappled with incredibly deep shades of purple, orange and blue.

Finally, after a wonderful short break, home to CT and preparations for another week. Should just add that the music festival Elizabeth's choir performed in on Thursday evening was a superb showcase of young talent. The orchestra, made up of only three local primary schools, was outstandingly good, playing Coldplay's Viva la Vida as the finale, and absolutely rocking the venue. Our (unbiased, obviously) opinion was that Rustenburg Junior has the best choir of the schools performing. The girls sing like angels, and Elizabeth's teacher is very hot on technique - all those 7.30am practices pay off. However it's also the most formal choir. One of the other schools gave a rendition of 'I'm a pink toothbrush' to huge applause - you'd have loved it mum!

Lots of love everyone. Have a great week.