More Highgate Ostrich Ranch

At Highgate's gift shop, there is every thing ostrichy you can think of: gorgeously decorated ostrich eggs, ostrich leather purses, little people surfing on ostrich feather surfboards, fans, lights made out of ostrich eggs, and even stuffed baby ostriches themselves. And who can forget the huge ostrich boas! We learned how to make them in the ostrich factory shop, along with feather dusters.

But they don't sell live ostriches.

The scenery around Oudtshoorn is gorgeous. People live in orderly little valleys, surrounded by rather dry mountains in this Little Karoo.

Rust en Vrede Waterfall-about 80 meters high!

This picture is for Kent Hovind. Notice how curvy the rocks shelves are. It's on the way into Oudtshoorn, at the pass.

Highgate Ostrich Ranch

Ride 'em cowboy! Josh got a good ride around the ostrich yard. He said it was prickly under there on his legs, and he got nervous when his ostrich went near other ostriches, but was glad to know they can't kick from the back.

Even I got brave enough to sit on but not to ride around.

Evangel enjoyed the ride the best, but said it's hard to hold on to the wings and was worried about breaking them.

Timmy goes for the jugalar vein.

Paul finds it! Who would have thought an ostrich could hold him? Evangel wants a baby one.

Josh isn't quite so gentle. Maybe they'll hatch under his feet. He has pretty hot feet.

One more look at Paul. We learned a lot at this ranch. We saw a chariot designed for ostriches. They'd put 2 females in front, and 2 males behind, and they'd run, if it was mating season. However ostriches aren't real bright, nor do they work well together so the chariot was retired.

I also learned that male heads and feet turn red when they are in breeding season. They get 16 eggs in the nest, laying one every other day, before they start sitting on them. If there are more then 16, they boot out the extra.

Danielito starred in one of Evangel's videos. Gloria had to wear a wig and Danielito was horrified at the change in his mum, but he finally got used to the new look after everyone had a good laugh at his cute little distress.

Like I said, it sounded a bit skinny to me, but really some of the caverns in these caves are big enough that concerts with full choirs used to be held inside them. It must have been beautiful!

Wherever we go, we remember the ones at home, missing us, and we miss them.

It's hard to get good pictures underground with my basic camara, but these caves are huge, awesome places with tours several hours long and beautiful rock formations. We took the standard tour as we wimped out of crawling through places like "The Postal Slot" which sounded a bit skinny for me.

Oudtshoorn

The Ostrich Capital of the World is a fun place to come with my husband on a preaching trip. We got here the day before my birthday so My Sweeties took me to Cango Caves to celebrate.

You can tell they're sweet because there it is in print!