Rain, more rain and a bit of sun

Good evening from a somewhat cloudy South Africa!

This week has been super busy as on Monday 93 grade eights arrived from Cape Town for a five day course. What would of been a fantastic programme filled with abseiling, canoeing, kayaking, hiking and camping out at different campsites each night, came to an abrupt stop due to the weather. On Tuesday morning the rain clouds rolled in and although it started of as patches of drizzle throughout the morning, by lunchtime it was pouring it down. The combination of the heavy rain and wind made canoeing, kayaking and abseiling unsafe for us to do and the campsites that the groups were hiking to were all underwater. Some groups (including the one I was supporting) headed out on the water early in hope to avoid the heavy rain, which did work for a bit but then it started to really rain on us. That afternoon all the groups got brought back to base to camp and to wait out the rain in hope of better weather.

Unfortunately the next morning proved no different with the heavy rain continuing leaving the instructors to come up with games or activities they could do in whatever dry space they could find for their group. That afternoon there was a reshuffle of the programme so that the groups could do activities on base so they could camp here. Luckily for everyone, the weather (and peoples moods) cleared up and by Thursday it was back to the sunny South Africa we love for courses. On base the groups did the trapeze, rafting and raft building along with group dynamics and initiatives. It was great to be out supporting the water activities again! As the weather had drastically improved some groups got to hike out to other campsites that they should of stayed at earlier in the week. Despite the weather this was a really good course to be part of. Each group was completely different and it was great to interact with them all and get to know some of the groups better. Saturday morning we all went out to one of the campsites on the other side of the estuary where all the canoes had been left when the groups were picked up and taken back to base due to the weather. This meant we had a nice canoe back to base - definitely 100% better than the canoe there on Tuesday morning - before going on leave for the rest of the weekend.

In some other news around base, I got the cold (blaming the canoeing in the rain earlier in the week). I lost the cold without passing it on to anyone. The electricity is continuing to be patchy and cuts out whenever it feels like it. Me and Talitha have still stuck to our 'swimming at least once a week' rule, there was a massive spider above our door and finally... We bought advent calendars and put up Christmas decorations!!!

Enjoy the photos,

Rachel