Ostriches and caves

There are not many times in my life that within the space of an hour I will sit on live creature and then eat a burger made of the same meat. OK it wasn't the same ostrich, but still.

Today started with a tour of an ostrich farm. First off we met the one week old chicks. 

There was one albino chick so I named her Clare. So please meet Clare the ostrich:

Next stop was feeding the adults from our hands and then the workshop, making engraved ostrich eggs for decoration and ostrich feather dusters.

Then we went to meet the breeding pairs, of which the farm had 60. We met Jack the Ripper and his wife Sally the Stripper. We didn't ask how they got their names, but these are their eggs:

Ostrich eggs are so strong, they can support a person's weight standing on them. We put this to the test and both passed (although under Rich's weight I definitely heard the little chicks sqwarking). (Whatever "sqwarking" means...).

Next we had a sit on an ostrich and Clare was light enough to be allowed to ride one. Photos of that will definitely have to follow in due course....

We were then treated to an ostrich race over a hundred yard track. Three ostriches, ridden by the ostrich handlers. Possibly the most absurd thing I've ever seen (except that I have now seen Clare ride an ostrich).

We had brunch under a huge pepper tree on the ostrich farm and tucked into our fantastic ostrich burgers in a beautiful setting.

After we had eaten we headed to the Cango Caves and booked ourselves on to the Adventure Tour...

So Clare had done some research as read that the adventure tour had some more interesting parts to clamber on than the standard tour.  This was an understatement...

Bits were beyond tight and we had to scramble, crawl, slide on our bellies - at one point we were both worried we would be stuck down there indefinitely. There was a tunnel called the chimney which was a 4-5m vertical climb up slippy rocks, with so little room that Rich had to empty his pockets to squeeze up! There was a tunnel called the coffin - the pic below is Clare going into it.

We made it out and treated ourselves to creme sodas and ice cream. Clare had too much sugar. This made Clare hyper and think she could sing to Taylor Swift while driving. Taylor has now made her one and only appearance on the car stereo for the trip, especially as "what? I was singing!" is apparently an acceptable excuse for taking a ninety degree bend at 60kmh in fifth...

Back to our lodge now for a braii!