Easter holidays

Not had much access to internet but here we are in the Drakensburg mountains helping out at Khoto Horse Lodge. Its been a busy weekend and they were short of staff so I have taken a couple of hour rides with other guests having only ridden the route once myself I am obviously qualified! The lodge is owned by Steve Black who is a South African running legend having won just about every long race there is here so, as you can guess, Patrick has been doing plenty of running. Steve's brother, Ali is also staying here, with his partner Kylie, in their log-cabin a couple of km further up into the hills and they are both keen runners. Steve is planning an epic run with Patrick into the mountain kingdom of Lesotho in about two weeks time. There are few roads in Lesotho and people use horses to get about. On Friday a few horses were stolen from the farm nearby and Steve is planning a four-day run into Lesotho with Patrick (about 40km each day) to make a dawn raid on the Lesotho village where he thinks the horses have been taken. He might carry a gun... but the Lesotho people are armed as well. He will take a CB radio to radio back to the other farmer about the whereabouts of his horses. If I can, I will ride some of it and carry supplies: rifle (?), food, blanket to sleep under...
In the meantime, we spent a night at the Splashy Fen music festival. Pitched our tents (the pop up kind), almost froze on the starriest night I have seen for a good while and listened to thumping pop/rock, reggae music... Not much of a place for kids e.g. really crude comedian, loads of pissed youngsters, and blisteringly hot so only stayed one night. Best bits for us were the Zulu dancers/singers and the Indian musicians - not impressed by the Africaans taste in music!
After riding out for a few hours this morning we walked over the hill to pick blackberries - great way to spend Easter Monday! So now we are cooking an apple and blackberry crumble in the Aga to share with the others tonight and it is hammering down with rain so really pleased that Steve has given us a four-bed room rather than sleeping in our tents.
Tomorrow we were going to head up Sani pass early - the highest pass in South Africa, in our 4 by 4 but Ali and Kylie want to do a long 3 hour run in a nearby national park and of course, Patrick will join them so we might get up there in the afternoon. Love this flexible kind of travelling! Great fun...