Oudtstoorn

Greetings from Oudtshoorn (pronounced "out sworn"as in having lost a profanity contest- great place for a couple of teachers trying to get away from it all, don't you think?). Travelling east from Swellendam a few days ago we rounded Mossel Bay: a popular, glittering body of water. From there we passed through the city of George then north to this sedate town which is the unofficial capital of the Little Karoo. There's also a Great Karoo - both of them very arid and hot places. The "Little" and "Great" refer to the degree of water deprivation each area suffers through. It is usually 38-40 degrees here at this time of the year! The Great Karoo is like the interior of Australian - a harsh inland desert that was once nevertheless a tropical sea basin.

Well, it didn't take long for us to figure out that in Oudtshoorn, it's all about the ostriches! The surrounding farmlands are thick with these birds which have been bred here since the late 1800s. The warm climate and loamy soils of the Oudtshoorn Valley constitute ideal growing conditions for "lucerne" - the favourite feast of our fast, feathery, flightless friends! In total, there are some 300 ostrich farms in the region. The birds live for 40-50 years.

When in Rome (or in this case, Oudtshoorn), . . .
Our first morning here we joined some other guests of "Backpacker's Paradise" for a traditional ostrich egg breakfast. It was quite good - a chewie texture than that of a hen's egg and much "yolkier" in flavour. After breakfast we set off to explore the town. Rick sure was moving faster than normal! I had a hard time just trying to catch up!!!

The male ostrich is black and white with some golden brown on its wings; the female is brown and white. The juvenile is a light brown and white, the gendre indistinguishable for the first few years. Although the image below may make it appear that an ostrich is glamorous (check out the lovely eyelashes) and suave, all that glitters is not gold. Each of an ostrich's eyeballs weights about 60 grams; the mass of the brain is 40 grams. By the way, it is actually a myth that these odd-looking birds bury their head in the sand.

After a visit to the very informative C.P. Nel museum, we feel like we could challenge even Jeopardy champion, Ken Jennings, if the category was "The Ostrich"! Here are some tidbits of what we learned for you trivia buffs out there. The barbules on the feathers of an ostrich are not interlocking which render the bird useless for flying. One ostrich egg measures 150 x 120 mm in size. In fact, it is the equivalent of 25 chicken eggs! Although its shell is only 2mm thick, it can withstand a weight of up to 220kg!!! The reason that the eggs are so strong is because they have to support the weight of either the male or female on the nest - female ostriches have been emancipated. To make the eggs resilient the female needs a lot of minerals (especially calcium) so it often ingests rocks and pebbles. When they empty the contents of a stomach they often find sticks and other hard objects too. If the bird can't find enough rocks it will consume just about anything hard - including spark plugs or sunglasses! That's a lot of fibre so an ostrich has an extra appendix. When a female lays its first egg of the season it immediately eats it. If its not high enough in calcium then it will temporarily cease to produce more eggs.

FORTUNES were made from the fashion for ostrich feathers! In the 1880s, hundreds of thousands of kilograms of feathers were being exported! At that time, feathers constituted 40% of all agricultural products in the country! A day old ostrich chick would trade for 60 bags of corn or 1080 litres of brandy! At the time the feathers were considered to be more valuable than gold. The reason was that they were prized throughout the fashion houses of Europe.

The feathers also became an important component of ceremonial and sometimes even military dress in Belgium and beyond. Actually, generals dating back to the Roman Empire often wore military hats adorned with ostrich feathers.

Oudtshoorn grew rich and the feather barons built grand houses that have been well preserved and lend the town its charm still today. Feather auctions were held in Oudtshoorn every 14 days and the wealth of the ostrich industry drew many immigrants. The "new" concept of automobile travel in open "tourers" in the 1900s soon out-moded large feather bedecked hats. The outbreak of war also forced the need for "practicality" in fashion causing feather sales to plummet. Today ostrich meat and skins produce a tidy profit.

We had seen the ostrich palace pictured above from a distance as we walked along the main street (called Baron von Feather Meister or something like that) during our first morning in the city. Upon investigation we discovered that it was converted into a high school below which a terrific track was built. What timing - the local elementary track and field championships happened to be taking place. Let me tell you, track and field is alive and well in South Africa! There was a full agenda of events, including the 100 metre and 200 metre hurdles for kids from about grade 5. The event was very well-organized and privately sponsored. There was also a large media contingent that had to have field level passes to gain entry and there were full-time announcers!

We enjoyed talking to some of the kids and watching them for the day. Perhaps most interesting of all was the fact that (as you see) almost nobody wore shoes for any event, track or field. It was blazing hot on the track, but I suppose they get used to it. We couldn't help but wonder about the liability issues as the kids spent the day, on the field and in the stands, in bare feet. Later in the afternoon there was an elite schedule of university events. Although most of the sprinters wore shoes, only one competitor in the 3000 metres women's steeplechase did.


Prior to the university meet there was an "opening ceremony" which featured fifteen minutes of singing and dancing. The crowd was very enthusiastic throughout the entire event - it was fun to be there! At the end of it all there was an open 200 meter race for anyone over eighteen who was willing to paint their hair yellow (or wear a yellow wig) since the event was sponsored by the Yellow Pages. The prize was 1000 rand, no small sum. Would have loved to participate but was still a bit sore from a climb and didn't want to risk injury prior to the Otter trail.

Riding an ostrich for about thirty seconds was exciting and great fun. I know you're probably thinking, poor animals and all. I admit, the animal rights activists would certainly have me over a barrel on this one. I was hesitant to get on until I watched somebody else (much bigger than me) try it out so that I could see how the animal responded. Now it's not a very easy thing to know what an ostrich enjoys or is thinking but apart from balking when a bag was put over its head while I mounted, the bird didn't look to be stressed. There's virtually no meat on an ostrich breast - it's all packed into the legs, which are very strong. An ostrich can run at 70 km/hr for three kilometres. When they butcher a bird they get 30-40 kg of meat off of its thighs - that's a lot of drumstick!
As you can see the hired hands actually race the birds, so it's all part of a day-in-the-life of a farm ostrich, a routine that they have no doubt come to accept as their lot in life.

One of the main attractions around Oudtshoorn is the Cango Caves, which rank as one of South Africa's top ten tourist attractions. There were two tour options - a six gallery walk or the "adventure tour" which included the first two galleries then some splunking through some fairly challenging tight spots that went 1200 metres into the cave system. This we took; it lasted for a full two hours and was loads of fun! The caves were amazing!

Before we left Canada I promised Nancy's mother that I would try my best to take care of her daughter but its sometimes just plain difficult to keep an eye on the woman!

Guess that's it for now. I will leave you of a photo that we took on our way up to the Swartberg Pass - never quite got there (ran out of daylight) but maybe another time! A lot of the landscape photos look much better when enlarged. Thanks for the time taken to read such a long blog - hope you found it interesting. Thanks to those who have sent us e-mail messages to let us know that they're well and tuned in.