Sunday was our day to be relatively relaxed from the crazy pace that game capture tends to set.  We had breakfast at the advanced  hour of 8:30 and then headed out to see what we could see.  Our first stop was at a small town that's basically an enclave for artists and other like minded folks. It was in SA's wild horse country, so we got to see a few of those roaming the streets too.  It was a really nice little place, with plenty of crafts shops and bed/breakfasts centered on the horses.  Sadly, there wasn't any thing like the souvenirs from the roadside stand we'd seen the week before.  As it turns out, all of those carvings and such actually were handmade... I thought they were just presented that way to dupe tourists.  If I'd known, I'd have gotten a lot more stuff there than I did.  Hopefully there'll be another shot at something along those lines, cause I'd like to bring some stuff home for more people.

After the artist town, it was a quick drive of about 10 minutes to the stables where we were going for a trail ride.  Everyone else had horses with interesting African names, but my boy was named Gambit.  Nothing to hold against him, though, since he was generally pretty agreeable besides trying to snap at one of the other horses.  He's about 16 and a crossbreed, captured wild when he was about 3 years old.  These folks tend to just let their horses loose in the area and call them in when they're needed.  Saves a lot on feed and stable space, but also makes it easier for thieves to steal the critters.

So we went out on our trail ride, about a dozen of us, through the largest man-made forest in the world.  A timber and pulp area, there is over 100 kilometers of pine trees there which started to be planted in the early 1800's.  It was a beautiful setting, especially the couple times when we broke out of the pines and saw some really nice overlooks.  We also had a baboon or two run across our trail, but Gambit was too bent on following the others for me to be able to both stop him AND take a good picture.  Still, it's neat to have seen them and handy that they're afraid of horses. The saddle was a modified Western saddle, after an old army model that they called a McClaren.  Basically, instead of a horn it had a rounded bulge on the front with a rectangular hole through it.  While it might be terrible form, I like that because it lets me canter and feel a lot more comfortable than in the English saddles.  Anyway, we rode for about an hour and a half, and saw some neat sites and generally had a great time with the animals.

After that, we headed towards home with a slight halt for a flat tire, before continuing to Sudwala caves.  The second largest cave system in SA, it was interesting in a historical sense and also because there were some neat formations.  I could swear the tour guide was hopped up on something, though... terrifyingly peppy.  Even Geran and Louie apologized for her afterwards.  Listening to Louie's ongoing cursing about being in a cave that could have an earthquake and kill him at any moment was pretty entertaining, especially since we've easily been able to pick up on some of their favourite words in Afrikaans.  After the caves, we pretty much went home to pack it in for the night since we had an early morning planned for Monday.