Things that made me smile this week

New born babies and their cute siblings
My friends just had their second baby and she's just as adorable as her little brother.

Tiny MP3 players
I'm testing this SanDisk Sansa Clip+ MP3 player - it's kinda awesome and much cheaper than an iPod. Doesn't have all the fancy schmancy colour display tricks and extras though.

Cupcakes...yum!
This one cheered me up big time this week :-)

Lip balm that looks like Pritt - HAHAHA
I love stationery.. and miniature fun stuff. So you can imagine how exciting it was to find a lip balm that looks like glue stick :-)

Sunnies!
I really dig my new shades and they made me smile because I didn't have to frown when there was glare.

Multi-cloured Post-It strips
I think this just goes hand in hand with my stationery fetish...and it looks funky on my wall calendar on important dates.

My F ing bling
This is my F on my door at work - nice and bling. Makes me grin when I get to work in the morning.

Yo!
Smiley faced yo-yo. Nuff said.

Tweede Tol

Tweede Tol is about an hour and 15 minutes away from Cape Town on Bain's Kloof Pass. It's in a nature reserve (Limietberg), has camping sites, a picnic area and rivers with rock pools. During the holiday seasons you have to arrive at the gate way before open time (8am) because space is limited and people start queuing from the night before (I'm not joking). For the rest of the year, try to get there before 8am at least. Space is limited and they have no qualms about turning you away when they've reached capacity.  Begging doesn't help.

You'll pay  R30 (each) to get in then you can park and head towards the picnic site. There's no shop at Tweede Tol so come prepared. They do sell toilet rolls for R2 but bring your own as well just in case they run out of stock. Yes, there are toilets.

The picnic area is a large grassy/sandy area with trees and braai spots scattered all over. Next to this is the Witte River with an awesome rock pool suitable for swimming or chilling. There's also a huge rock you can jumpoff into the water - if you feel like being adventurous.

If you're camping at Tweede Tol, you have access to a another river and a series of rock pools. We didn't camp there but we snuck past the guards (there weren't any) and just kept walking like we belonged there. I think most people do that anyway.

The route we took to get to the pools

The first rock pool and waterfall is beautiful. It's easily my favourite pool (even though I only know of two).  It's got blue/green cool water (depending on the angle you look at it) with little waterfalls trickling into it. If you're brave (not like me) you can jump from the top into the pool.

Mmmmmm

Jumpers

The face says it all

I like this pool so much I'm going to add more pics (sorry).  :-)

Jumping in a different style

After splashing about in that pool, we walked on to get to the (apparently) better pool. I still like the first one more. The next one's a much bigger pool with a few jumping spots as well.

Pool number 2

There is a trail you can walk along to get to the pools but we decided to walk along the river. It's a bit tricky at times and you're most probably going to slip a few times but it's refreshing to walk through the water here and there, especially on a really hot day. You WILL get wet - sometimes hip-deep.

Crystal Pools

**UPDATED INFO ON THE HIKE WAS ADDED 15 NOVEMBER 2012 AS THIS HIKE HAS NOW RE-OPENED WITH NEW RULES AND COSTS

On Sunday 13 February 2011 I did the Crystal Pools hike in Gordon's Bay. After hearing rave reviews about it and reading other people's views I decided to join my buddies on this half-day hike.

All the reviews I read claimed that it was an easy or leisurely walk to the first waterfall. LIES! All lies!  I could gauge by the way the other hikers passing us were dressed that they were told the same thing. Ladies with fancy slip slops and hand bags were walking slowly to avoid the MANY rocks you will encounter.  It's not hard - it's just not as easy as most people make it out to be. Also, there's no shade - and the sun shows no mercy.

From the parking lot at Sunbird Guesthouse, we had to walk to the entrance of the hike

Whale sperm ..haha

And off we go

You get some nice views of the sea at the beginning

 We took about 45 minutes to an hour to get to the first rock pool. There's nothing 'crystal' about it but it's big and there are some logs floating around in case you're too lazy to swim and you want to float about.

The first pool

The second pool is about  5 to 10 minutes further up (above the first pool). This one's bigger and has a REALLY high kloofing spot. If you've got the balls, you can jump into the pool from about 18 metres above. Because the water's so dark, it's difficult to see the rocks below you so be careful while you're swimming. There's a little waterfall you can chill under and it has a cool view of the mad people jumping.

If you look closely on the right you can see people waiting to jump

All in all it's a fun day out - just wear appropriate walking shoes or takkies. It's not THAT laidback. Wear sunscreen and a hat or cap. Take lotsa water as I wouldn't recommend drinking from the pools, and pack some lunch and snacks.

We didn't go all the way up to the top waterfall because we underestimated the walk and the sun. So by the time we reached the second pool we were done for the day.

Get your permit (R15) at Sunbird Guesthouse, just before the Steenbras Bridge and you can park there (R10) or further on opposite the trail entry. On the trail you'll see little red markers as you go - make sure you follow them and don't get lost. Have fun :-)

UPDATE (2012): Pre-booked permits are now R60 a person and can only be obtained at the Helderberg Nature Reserve main gate during operating hours. A minimum of three and maximum of 10 peopler per group are allowed and the hike only allows 50 people in total at a time. No kids under 12 allowed.

Markers to help you find your way

Sale fail

I saw this window in Sea Point a few days ago and I was wondering which offer people will like more.

I'm officially a twit

I forgot to mention I'm Tweeting now (on Twitter.com.. duh). Follow me @Famabear. I make random comments but inbetween I've got some useful tweets about specials and stuff.

I'll be waiting!  ...  :-)