Monday, January 28, 2008

At "Bathplug cave" in Cobham
With our friends David and Shaz in the Underberg. Do you see Bonny??
Sunset in the Underberg.
Look carefully at the directions- this is for doglovers who go running with there dogs...
Tim and Grandpa on the beach

The family at "Dolittles Farm Coffee house" in the Underberg.


At Castleburn Timeshare in the Underberg. Robyn "loves" to hike!!!

With Granny and Grandpa at "Happy Wonderers" in Scottsburgh
Tim Quadding on David and Shaz's farm in the Underberg
Hiking at Cobham in the Underberg
View of the river in Cobham.


Sorry- still havn't got the hang of this blog thing. All the pictures are all out of sequence. Will improve with time.....



So much has happened since our last update.

After much consideration our flight to Kenya was delayed until 4th February- there has been ongoing unrest in the country following the recent elections where there are allegations of unfair “rigging” of the results. We are anxious to get there but need to be patient.

Lynne joined us safely at the timeshare hotel in the Underberg. We had a very relaxing time with Mom and Dad. It was a bit cooler than the coast which has been terribly hot and humid.

We met up with some friends Shaz and David who live out on a timber farm in Underberg and ended up staying on with them for 3 nights which was lots of fun- Tim and Robyn got to go Quad riding, there are 7 dogs and a pet pig and sheep just to mention a few of the other attractions.


We then returned to Hibberdene to spend more time there with Mom and Dad.

We are becoming more aware of the changes in South Africa- apart from the continual feeling of danger when one leaves the “safety” of home, the newest development has been the advent of “load shedding” which I believe has been happening since mid Dec. It appears that there has been insufficient maintenance of the power generating plants leading to 4 of them being off line (the most recent being a nuclear plant in Cape Town), coupled with a rapid expansion in development requiring more power: together this has outstripped the available power and the solution has been to simply rotate power outages around the country. Practically what this has meant in the last 2 weeks are 1-2 power outages per day lasting 2 hrs each (typically from 6-8pm).

These outages affect the cities equally- this affects businesses as well as the traffic lights which then affects the flow of traffic. On the news tonight, some tourists were stranded on Table Mountain after a power outage (and some trapped in the cable car for 2 hours). They had a generator but something went wrong.

This is expected to carry on for the next 5 years as it seems it will take that long to expand the power generation plants….

Yesterday we were in a shopping mall when the power outage happened- the store owners now offer flashlights for you to browse the shop with!!!

Tomorrow we will head to Durban to see my Aunt for her 80th birthday and then to visit with a friend.

The news reports are beginning to look more positive for Kenya- it appears that the leaders are beginning to talk to one another. It will still be months before things can be worked out but if we can get to Kapsowar safely, it appears that it has not been directly affected by all the unrest.

---------

This is now a few days later- have not had internet access. Saw my aunt and cousins and have spent time with our friend in Durban and are now back in Hibberdene. Have just heard from Mom and Dad of the new developments in Kenya with more unrest and possible breakdown in the peace talks.

Please pray for us and for Kenya. We will need to decide by the end of this week as to what we will do. We trust in God to make His way clear to us.

We are otherwise all doing very well and missing you all.

Lots of love

David, Lynne, Robyn and Tim


3 comments:

Spatz said...

hey this is michael,
looks pretty nice down there.
it looks warm, the warmest it's been here for the last week was -5
I'm not sure i will borrow your water bottles after hikes anymore looking at that picture.have fun
from MIchael

Spatz said...

By the way Auntie Lynne,

Did you know you can comment on your own blog. I want to hear some comments from you guys since the email isn't working too well.

Stefan

Spatz said...

Hey guys this is Michael,
remember me?
just kidding.
we got a foot of snow last night. its to bad you guys arn't here you'd love it. i hope you have. hows the patrica lynne page school acadamy going. you get to miss a day because we had a snow day today.
hope to see you soon, Michael