I have never thought much about Easter, considering i am not a Christian and hence for me it holds hardly/no significance (with all due respects and no offense to religious folks) except it used to be sometimes an off day from work... (sometimes = hardly/don't remember :D). In India, i did not get these offs considering how stock market companies mostly adhere to national holidays only and more often than not skip even those! So here in South Africa, where the obvious religion seems to be Christianity, Easter is a big thing and is sandwiched between "Family Day" and "Freedom Day" and "Labour Day" and many such happy happy holidays :P. One of the 2 long weekends and offs here in SA, we ( I and my husband) decided we ought to put em to good exploratory use, And we DID !! :D ...
We explored the beautiful province of Mpumalanga ( name that means "East" or literally "the land where the sun rises" in Zulu, Xhosa and Swazi), situated towards the east of Gauteng ( thats where i live) and took approximately 4 hours drive to Nelspruit, which is the capital of Mpumalanga. In Nelspruit, we know of this lovely B&B ( Bed and Breakfast) place called 'Bavaria Guest House' and its very friendly and helpful hosts Roger and Louise Higham; where we decided to stay in. Roger is quite knowledgeable of sights to see and places to visit along with timings etc. He also provides maps and routes ( as perhaps many B&B in the area do). But he is a courteous person and takes personal interest in the needs of his guests which is quite nice to experience! ( By the way, i feel the whole B&B concept is a very smart business idea for people who have lavish housing and have numerous rooms; on a daily charge of Rand 500 per room per night with breakfast, it is a very very smart concept indeed if someone has say 6 rooms and is an ideal touristy location!!)
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| View from our room - Bavaria Guest house, Nelspruit |
Anywho, we spent day 1 lazing in the guest house considering we reached late evening and were tad sore from the drive. Our whole purpose of visiting the province had been to check out "The Panorama route" which is pretty breathtaking as the word goes. On day 2 though there were low clouds and mist, so checking out the view couldn't have happened. Hence, upon Rogers' reco we visted the Nelspruit Botanical Gardens. I imagined the place to have loads of well lined bushes, trees, grass and flowers etc with tags and names that i had tried memorizing in some Bio-chem lecture in college ( its an impossible task i think). Pleasantly it was anything but boring! It had water-falls and pathways made of wooden logs that i felt was out of a jungle movie! So lush green, typical rainforest, plush and Beeeooooteeefooool!!! :D Loved it.... Check out the pics, i had to select sparingly and still it is quite much!!
I think this post of mine would need a part- 2 ....
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