FAMILY AFFAIRS

Leon and Chriscelia hosted a family get together at their home on Sunday and thankfully the day was sunny because the family has increased considerably and it was perfect for lunch under the trees in their lovely garden. It was a wonderfully happy occasion and lovely to see the various generations and to meet the latest addition to the family - young Jacques Leon.

Three generations of Pienaars
Andre holding Jacques, Leon, Alec Julian holding Rueben and Lexie

And the power behind them
Nrike. Louise, Sara, Chriscelia, Hayley, Annabelle
Ushi holding Danica, Eubre with Jeani and Ines

JOHANNESBURG

To be in Johannesburg in spring and see it in all its spring glory with banksia roses, petria, yesterday-today-and tomorrow in full bloom and the heady scent of blossom is a treat. We were met by Chriscelia and we caught the new Gautrain to Sandton - it's a joy not to have to brave the heavy traffic and to arrive after a 15 minute journey in Sandton City. The gardens in Johannesburg are glorious and we're staying with my brother Leon and Chriscelia whose garden is an oasis and its wonderful waking each morning to the familiar bird calls.
We've met up with some of our friends. I spent the morning with Elnor in her astoundingly beautiful garden and we went out to lunch close to where we used to live and had a superb meal at The Burnside. It's so lovely to be with lifelong friends where one resumes the friendship with ease. We had lunch with Henry and Pat in their lovely garden and dinner with Grant and Ushi. We met up with Rob, Barbie, Les and Sandy and had one of those lunches that's filled with teasing and laughter.

Elnor - cherry blossom time

Conal, Pat and Henr 

Johannesburg is vibrant, the people are warm and friendly and at every traffic light there are people selling flags and rugby jerseys and wherever one goes there are people wearing Springbok colours. It's also a city of high walls and I was so amused to see the ultimate wall in Hyde Park decorated with Greek sculptures!

Jo'burg walls - EISH

Conal, Barbie, Sandy, Les, Louise and Rob at the Fishmonger

LAST DAYS IN BERN

We arrived back in Bern from our barge trip somewhat travel worn after braving the early morning traffic on the highway, dodging huge trucks and trying to read road signs to Montpellier Airport where we dropped Di, Ants and Prue in a flurry. On to Nimes where we handed in the car with a sigh of relief and caught the TGV to effortlessly slip through the French countryside in speed and comfort.

Anna and Jan were at the station to meet us and we settled into the easy routine of our life in Bern again. Our last few days were spent visiting our favourite spots, watching Jan and his team trounce the Italian Soccer team (Jan scored 4 out of the 6 goals) and saying good bye to Hendrik and Anna's friends who have been so warm and kind to us during the summer. It has been a beautiful summer - one that we'll always remember and treasure. We have been so privileged to tap into the Roos's life and now can picture the small things that make up their daily routine.

Henrik and Anna in Como

Louisa, Anna and Jan

Anna and her good friends Trix and Simone

The weather changed, the temperature dropped and we left Bern on a grey, sombre afternoon matching our mood - goodbyes are always so painful.

CANAL DU MIDI - IN RECORD TIME

Clearing the lock

Reflections in a green cathedral

Di and Ant got their wires crossed and so instead of doing the barge trip in 7 days - we had to get to Port Cassafieres in 6 days and we set off from Castlenaudry after stocking up at the local supermarket with provisions determined to get through 64 locks and 157 km within the limited time. It's difficult to pace the trip because it's never possible to gauge how long it'll take to get through the locks. Sometimes one has to wait for the upcoming boats to clear the locks, sometimes there are as many as 3 locks  in a row - and in the case of the locks at Beziers called the Fonserannes Staircase - 7 locks. The last time we went on this trip was over 20 years ago - and we definitely felt the toll of the intervening years! But Conal and I leapt off the barge, pushed and pulled, coiled and attempted to lassoo - and tried to improve our imperfect skills. We were the oldest on the canal by far and provided much amusement to the tourists and the locals who come out to watch people making a mess of things. And we did mess up on numerous occasions. We laughed until we wept at the spectacle we must have made of ourselves. It was a heap of fun - although the last day was too hot and the sun too relentless for my liking. But we made it and it is the most idyllic trip so worth every minute of nearly falling in the canal, the twisted ropes, the barge caught broadside in the canal and once almost taking an entire restaurant with us! At times we did it like professionals though...

Lock keepers house

The countryside we passed through is sublime - and thank goodness for the shade of the beautiful old plane trees that line the banks of the river. The Midi is the brain child of Pierre Paul Riquet and was made possible by locks designed by Leonardo da Vinci. Riquet must have been passionate to overcome the many obstacles that he had to face but he made it his life's work, sourcing water from the many rivers in the area. The project was started in 1667 and finallly completed in 1681 sadly just shortly after his death when the canal was finally filled with water. The construction is complex with spillways making provision for floods, acqueducts that contain rivers and it must have been a constant battle not only of problem solving but fighting off his detractors. Of course originally the barges would have been horse drawn so tow paths line the banks that now are perfect for cyclists and we also took the opportunity of cycling ahead of the barge under the dappled shade.

Mind your heads!

Our route took us through the ancient town of Carcassone and we caught a little tourist train up to the old fortified city, dating back to Roman times and renovated at the end of the 19th C. It's become a real tourist trap inside the walls of the old city with lots of lovely shops providing all kinds of beautiful clothes and souveneirs and we wandered through the city trying to imagine what it must have been like in the 3rd & 4th century AD before the age of consumerism.

Di encouraging us

LAST DAYS IN LE VIGAN

We drove through to Nimes on Monday to collect Di, Ant and Prue Hare - handing in our little toy car at the station and swopping it for a Peugot Partner. Our guests were late so we didn't get back to Espigarie until after 7 pm and we had a great deal of fun watching their look of disbelief when they arrived at the farm. The splendid confusion was quite a shock for them - and then like us they seemed to grow used to the confusion. 

Paillerols from the contour walk

Di and Prue showing the way

We spent the next few days showing them around the area. We have loved living in the beauty of the Cevennes and being part of life in this magic part of the world for a short while. We started to recognise people in the village, listened to the local daily news on TV in French, gazed at the wooded rugged mountains and the many rivers that curve through fertile valleys and enjoyed living off the land and dipping into life in rural France briefly. Sadly our time in Paillerols drew to a close and we had to leave fig heaven on Friday 9th for Castlenaudry early in the morning for the next leg of our journey. It's one of those memories that I'll treasure forever.  

Painting by Omer Faidherbe - the artist living in Paillerols

CIRQUE DE NAVACELLES

A number of people recommended that we visit the Cirque de Navacelles, a round trip to the biggest gorge in Europe. On the map the road has that treacherous look of many sharp twists so it seemed a good idea to do the excursion on a good day. Tuesday was a stunning day and we set off armed with our picnic lunch along the Arre River (yes Le Vigan is on the Arre - as opposed to Bern on the Aare!) in a verdant, thickly  treed valley through little villages where the road blends with the buildings. It's a slow incline and suddenly the typography changes and we arrived on a plateau with stunted oak trees - and then abruptly the escarpment gives way and there is the spectacular gorge with Navacelles in the bend of an extinct oxbow of the River Vis far below. The road zig-zaggs down to the bottom and fortunately being the end of the holiday season, there wasn't much traffic because we had to stop to manouvre our way past oncoming cars as we made our way through 3 million years of erosion. The limestone cuttings on the side of the road are fascinating - the horizontal layers of rock have vertical intrusions and the rock face looks like carefully laid bricks. 

Navacelles at the base of the Gorges de Vis

Navacelles is a quaint little town and we had lunch close to the waterfall where the Vis suddenly emerges again - I still have to find out where the course of the river is, because the gorge looks as if it ends in a blind valley and although there is an aqueduct somehow it wasn't apparent where the source rises. Our little toy car strained up the steep pass with Conal warning that we'd have to descend again - and indeed we no sooner reached the top of the escarpment than the road dipped - this time fortunately a slow decline eventually driving along yet another beautiful valley whizzing past XIthC churches and Roman bridges - I would have loved to stop but once behind the wheel, Conal has the habit of only stopping when once he has reached his destination.  On our trip we drove along three different rivers, the Arre, Vis and finally the Herault River.

The village of Navacelles

Although the gorge is not as vast as the canyon we saw in Utah, it is spectacular in it's own way and of course being able to drive to the base of the gorge and being dwarfed by the height of the mountains gave us another perspective. Certainly worth the journey - although I would hesitate to take anyone who suffers from car sickness along the route. 

Conal says this is one of the descendants of Modestine - the name of the donkey in Robert Louis Stephenson's book we're reading - grazing in the field next to our house in Espigarie