What do you do when temperatures are expected to soar to dangerous levels on the day you have a coach trip planned for inland?
Well, you get going – and head to Elgin despite the predictions. It was suggested at the start of the tour that, perhaps, we should stay ON THE COACH with the air-conditioner going full bore!
A comfortable trip had us arriving at the Elgin Railway Market in blistering heat – the enormous fans did help to circulate the heat, and many enjoyed a cool drink – (G&T’s being most popular)! We sat listening to the live music waiting for the arrival of the steam train from Cape Town. It arrived (late) just before 12h00 bringing excited passengers to the unique market.
After spending an hour at the market we headed to the Houw Hoek Hotel, which is 10 minutes from the market. We had booked their new function room for our group of 22, with several others eager to try their Sunday Roast lunch. After spending 3 nights at the hotel in December 2019 (Our Old Year tour), Brian was keen to show others how the hotel had developed over the years.
The function room is huge – with large doors and windows, most of which were opened wide, – making the heat manageable. Inland temperatures were predicted to go into the late 30’s and early 40’s and we certainly felt it.
As the lunch progressed (buffet) everyone started to feel “hotter” but heat does strange things to people’s morale!
It was hard to get excited about the awesome buffet that was on offer, and the chef had excelled himself in the preparation!
They had prepared Salads / Calamari / Vegetables – (their spinach was so tasty)/ Gammon and Lamb with fabulous roast potatoes/ and then a dessert buffet with everything so please anyone with a sweet tooth! We were all sorry that at the end of the lunch there was so much left on the buffet table.
However, we tried to keep cool and asked our coach driver to go ahead 10 minutes before our planned departure to switch our air-con back on and we had a pleasant drive back to Constantia (with a stop at Peregrines Farm Store) for our first drop off at just after 16h30 and Tableview after 17h00.
We completed our 11th Mystery Tour that in 2023 we would Book a venue close to the sea – perhaps even somewhere where everyone could ‘dip’ their hot feet in the icy waters of the Atlantic Ocean…………….
“The heat index is somewhere between OMG and WTF.”