And it’s all green.
Sometimes, I don’t really understand my wife, but you should go and try.
Month: September 2006
Dreaming of volcanoes
I recently discovered while reading about South Africa on wikipedia that South Africa politically owns the Prince Edward Islands. I starting thinking that I should pay a visit to this far flung South African destination. The islands have a volcanic origin, and the volcano is active. Technically, this means that there is a volcano in South Africa. How can we not visit the South African volcano?
Presumably because of this (but also possibly due to thinking about Mount Doom) I dreamed that I actually went to visit Marion Island.
I climbed up, but didn’t get all the way over to the edge because it was hot and glowing and dangerous-looking. Then it started to erupt. Kind of. It spat some rocks out into the air and I was worried that I might get hit on the head by them.
I decided it would be a good idea to get off the side of the volcano. As headed away from the crater, I noticed that the other tourists (yes, there were about five other people casually wandering about on the side of the volcano) were all wearing hard-hats. Why the hell wasn’t I given a hard-hat?
I feel a little less enthusiastic about visiting the place now.
Goblin’s Cove
I’ve been married 3 years now. Time hasn’t really passed all that slowly, which is a good thing because it proves I was having fun. Although it hasn’t all been fun, it has been predominantly fun.
Blah blah blah.
The point is that Angie and I went off on a mission to a place called Goblin’s Cove. It is situated near Magaliesberg. If you have Google Earth, you can check it out from the sky with this file.
It was a most excellent and restful visit.
We stayed overnight in an old railway carriage that had been refurbished to be more suitable as a hotel room. They pulled out a bunk to fit a double-bed into one of the cabins, and retrofitted a modern toilet and shower into the bathroom. They left the original fold-away sink in place. It had silly taps that you couldn’t really get your hands under, but it was an interesting experience.
The passage inside the train
We spent most of Saturday there, just arbing, going for strolls, and reading. They have a weird menagerie that includes geese, rabbits, doves, and exotic chickens (yes, exotic is the only way to describe them and their plummage) in the same enclosure.
Front view of Goblin’s Cove
There is also a gift shop, restaurant, and coffee shop. The decor is consistently bizarre and outlandish, and the architecture of the buildings is like something out of Middle-Earth (although the colours seem a little more garish than I imagined Middle-earth to be).
Psychodelic coffee shoppe
We both loved the place (so thanks Angie (not the wife) and Sandor for the heads up), and plan to be going back sometime in (hopefully) the not too distant future.
Goblin’s Cove – We’re lovin’ it!
The Waffle Group 