2009-10-02 - frolicking among the flowers

(This is another one of those blog entries that is utterly useless without the photos. Do come back later because photos will eventually come!)

Today's activity was a trip to Kirstenbosch National Botanic Gardens. We were there in 2006, but didn't get a chance to spend as much time there as we would have liked. So we decided to spend a good amount of time there this time, including having a picnic lunch on their never-ending nice green lawn.

So the first thing we did upon arrival was to go to the deli and buy a picnic box (this took a little bit of time since we didn't prebook it). We took that out to a bench under a tree, a nice shady spot close to a duck dam. Upon opening the picnic box, we were quite shocked to see the amount of food we got. Sure, we ordered some kind of "deluxe" type picnic box, but geez... lots of food. But we just dug right in - salad, fruit salad, different kinds of cold cuts and cheeses, bread, dried fruit, nuts, etc. Lots of good stuff. And it was filling... oof! Seriously... according to the picnic menu, the picnic box was supposed to be food for two people, but it could have easily fed four people. Lots of food!

After all that food, we had to walk around. It was quite rough in the heat though (the South African sun is hot, powerful, and brutal). Nonetheless, we managed to see quite a bit, but still only a fraction of what Kirstenbosch has to offer. You really have to spend at least several days there to see it all. Ms. Penguin's favorite part was the useful plants area; she thinks it's interesting how different kinds of plants are used to treat various ailments or otherwise used as food, tea, or cosmetics. The areas with the fynbos, ericas, and proteas is also well worth spending a lot of time in. All the beautiful colors! We were there right in time for the spring blossoms. The photos that will eventually come will serve no justice to what meets you when you go through the gates!

Kirstenbosch is being marketed as the most beautiful garden in Africa. We don't know if that is true or not, but it sure is amazingly beautiful there!

In the end, it just got too hot. So we headed back to Stellenbosch. Still a bit stuffed from our picnic, we had a simple dinner at an Internet café, where we also published the previous batch of blog entries :-P