Relaxing in beautiful Barberton
Barberton, Mpumalanga, South Africa, 2009-10-07 12:00 by Laerke
After dusty Kruger we drove to Barberton; a town that dates back to South Africa’s gold rush days. Several old hoses remain from the boom days and Barberton is also home to South Africa’s first stock exchange. Things have calmed down concededly since then and Barberton now has an appealing small-town feel. We went for a walk through the quiet streets and took a look at the old houses who all, to our surprise, were build out of corrugated iron! But they were pretty cute none the less. The thing that made the biggest impression on us were all the flowers though, all the trees were in bloom and red, orange, purple, pink and yellow were everywhere. It was such a pretty sight!
We were staying with a girl through Couchsurfing, her name is Bronwyn and she turned out to be great, she arranged for a braai for us. Braai is the Afrikaans word for barbeque and the South African’s LOVE their braai! It is like a national pastime and at all camp grounds and picnic spots you will find braai facilities. Now we were being treated to our first braai – and it was lovely! We had deliciously super quickly flame grilled beef filet, it was still kinda raw in the middle – and just perfect! Plus lots of wine and talk made for a wonderful first braai :-)
Barberton is very close to the border to Swaziland, we went for a drive up in the mountains along the border. It was beautiful and serene up there, so we found a good spot and had a nice picnic and relaxed.