We decided on an inland route and chose Willowmore as our destination. We travelled through beautiful countryside and saw loads of animals including Secretary birds, buck, warthogs, monkeys, merino sheep and an enormous tortoise in the middle of the road.

I tried helping said tortoise across the road more quickly, but he was convinced he could do it himself and sped up a gear to get away from me! We had quite a bit of Centipede Slalom as well – there were hundreds of them on the road and we veered all over the place to avoid squishing them.

Heading towards Willowmore the road turns into a one-way cement road and you have to pull over when another vehicle approaches. We encountered almost no traffic until we got onto this probably 30km stretch of road! Murphy’s Law, or does one say Van-der-Merwe’s-law in South Africa?!

Willowmore is a delightful town with an interesting restaurant which serves a high quality of food in a very artsy environment. Have a look at Sophie’s Choice next time you’re there. And pop into the shop right next door which happens to sell Nicci’s ceramics (see my recent Lesley and Nicci post). We even managed to get goats meat in the town and I made a deeeeevine curry with it.

We had intended to stay in the area for the night, but the farm I had chosen was 30km up a dirt road and there was the threat of rain and we only had a small rental car, so we drove on to Uniondale. We arrived there in pouring rain and had more difficulty finding a reasonable priced BnB than we had anywhere else in the country. A small village in the middle of nowhere and enormous prices!

We eventually found a beautiful but expensive place to stay and went out for dinner. The BnB and restaurant (and most other places in the village) are owned by the same person so we were directed to their restaurant. The food was mediocre (we had ribs), but the service was excellent.

The restaurant is called The Hungry Ghost and it has an interesting story to tell. Apparently a young couple had been involved in a car accident on the day of their engagement and the young lady died. She was “seen” several times over the next 8 years and was often picked up hitchhiking and then suddenly she was no longer in the car… I would say give the area a miss if you’re a bit on the scardy side, but she apparently disappeared after the fiancée died, also in a car crash… Naught stranger than folk or ghosts in this instance.