Oudtshoorn Adventure

Over the years tourism and Global Challenge Expeditions (GCEX) has had a good understanding with each other and it seems Global Leadership Acadamy (GLA) is now finally joining the friendship.

During the long weekend of the 6th to the 9th of August the GLA Tourism class seized the opportunity and organized a trip to Oudtshoorn for a visiting disabled woman and her team from America.

With input and initiative from their teacher, Mrs. Taute, the class put together, seemingly effortlessly, an action packed weekend that the Americans would not soon forget...

The History class (knowing that chances lost are chances gone) jumped onto the bandwagon as well. A visit to the museum was thus quickly thrown into the packed program so as to justify, even if vaguely, their participation in the weekend.

But alas, traveling with 20 people and 3 cars is not a feat to be accomplished quickly, and so the vision of a visit to the Oudtshoorn Museum rapidly fainted as the group arrived in Oudtshoorn, well after its closing time.

However this did not seem to faze the History students or their teacher, Mrs. McFarlane (who also happens to be the principal). Who would want to visit a museum with different prospects like the Cango Caves, Ostrich riding and a Wildlife Ranch lying in wait?

So the party made their way over to Amber Lagoon backpackers where they would be staying for the weekend. A few surprises lay in wait here as the boys soon learned that they would have to overnight in tents and not in the expected dorms. This did not go down well as they suddenly imagined a myriad of things that could go wrong: “We are going to freeze,” some whispered, whilst others told tales of dew seeping in through the canvas. The hospitality of our host soon solved the problem as she then made available another dorm.

Instead Mrs. Taute and her husband and Mrs. McFarlane slept in tents. And very comfortably one might add. They did not freeze, and no dew seeped in.

It was also during that night that they heard what seemed like a lion. This scared dear Miss Kriek so much that she overcame her fear of heights and made her bed in the loft up stairs. They learned the following morning that it was actually the mating call of an Ostrich and not in fact, a lion.

Waking up with the sun the next morning the party soon made their way to their first stop: the Cango Wildlife Ranch. Here they were met with wonderful creatures, from Flying Foxes to Miniature Hippos and White Tigers.

From there the group made their way over to the Highgate Ostrich farm. Highlights at Highgate were probably the feeding and riding of the Ostriches. Feeding them seemed especially challenging to some of our American friends and school girls who, with a shriek, threw the maize seeds in the air with the first peck.

The riding of the Ostriches turned out to be a bird of a different colour. Some surprised with their daring attitudes, some understandably sat out and then some others proved their bark was bigger than their bite. Or should I say their peck was... oh never mind.

At the Cango Caves seven of the most daring in the group attempted the Adventurer route which entails having to crawl through tiny cracks and tunnels with names like the Devil’s chimney and the Postbox.

The rest of the group was satisfied with the normal route, which does not include any crawling, but shows off the splendour of the caves.

They arrived back at the backpackers bone tired but satisfied with their many adventures during the day.

Of course everyone was sad the weekend drew so quickly to an end but Sunday morning one more surprise lay ahead of them. Mrs. Taute had secretly organized for a swim in a natural hot spring not far from there. All that the group was told to do was to have their swimwear ready, which one can imagine, made them skeptical about this “swimming surprise” during the cold Karoo winter.

Needles to say on arrival at the hot spring it took but only a few seconds before students and Americans were splashing in a pool of hot water! What a nice surprise.

From there they opted to take the garden route on the way home and after making a quick stop for curios in Knysna arrived safely home; just in time for Sunday lunch!

Thank you for or everybody that participated in this great weekend:

The Americans: Dina, Brandon, Steve, Lauren, Paloma, and Elise.
The GLA students: Lawden, Franco, Wezi, Bianca, Devon, Rhyss, Jonathan, Anri, Alecia, Taryn
The Staff: Mr. and Mrs. Taute and Mrs. McFarlane