Hello everyone on HIVE!
This is my first Wednesday Walk Post, and I must be honest that it didn’t happen today (Wednesday 13 July) but rather a couple of Wednesdays ago during a holiday I took with my wife (Julia) and 11-month-old daughter (Madison) in the beautiful Garden Route section of South Africa.
What’s my excuse for the delay in posting? Well, we were in such a lovely small cottage in a beautiful little seaside village, and so we had absolutely no WI-FI to post about it until our return to the city of Cape Town.
This was little Madison’s furthest drive in a car by far – about 7 hours there and 7 hours back. She wasn’t always happy about it, but on average I think we got away with it as she slept several times both ways and we found toys and videos to entertain her.
The pictures below are also from her first two hikes ever! We used a carrier facing forwards when she was awake and facing into my chest when she had the odd snooze! She seemed very happy, and never complained about the hiking at all!
WEDNESDAY HIKE
Giddy-up Dada! - Getting started on a sandy beach
Julia was not impressed that I was carrying our precious baby along this rocky coast, but Madison actually slept through this entire adventurous section (and I'm the son of a famous rock-climber!)
This eventually brought us to a beautiful river mouth, reminiscent of a movie like "The Beach"
All right South Africans - this is your best chance to guess where we are! Hiking back to the little village via the forest... You can see that the sandy beach alone makes for a lovely 2km walk
FRIDAY HIKE
Little Madison learning about moss!
Look carefully and you will see a bushbuck behind the fence - Madison is fascinated!
It had rained heavily the previous day and the local river was rushing along powerfully - little did we know that this meant that the lagoon at the beach would break open and start rushing out to sea just where the hike ended! We landed up wading waist deep across the gushing water to get back to the house, with me holding Madison up high - luckily only Mama and Dada got wet and little Madison was left wondering what all the fuss was about!
A much less adventurous river crossing than the one I've just described, but still a pretty adventurous part for little Madison to decide to take a snooze!
Well - little Madison is crawling well and it looks like free-standing and walking is not too far away! I wonder how old she will be when she starts to enjoy hiking without a carrier?
THE END