This photo features what must be one of the most notable structures in the small town of Wellington. This church building is home to the town's traditional Afrikaans church, the NG Kerk (Dutch-Reformed Church), and is in fact the "moedergemeente" (mother-congregation), meaning that it's the main Dutch-Reformed Church of the district.

While looking for information on the town I discovered something interesting. Do you know how many places in the world are called Wellington? Just take a look at the "Places" section of the Wikipedia Wellington disambiguation page. Apart from New Zealand, the UK, India, Chile, Canada and Australia, the United States of America alone has 18 places called Wellington (or Wellington Township in some cases)!

I mean folks, what's up with that? Why are some names just so popular?

Anyway, let's get back to Wellington in South Africa. The smallish town of Wellington is home to just shy of 58,000 people. It's found just behind the perhaps better-known town of Paarl, and is one of the Cape's prime grape districts. Many years ago, in my teenage years, my family used to spend Easter weekends camping at the municipal caravan park in Wellington. Although I'm not sure what the park is like now, at the time it was pretty decent. Most camping sites had ample shade from huge Bluegum trees, there was plenty of grass on the large open space in the middle of the park, the facilities were not bad (as far as camping facilities go), and the huge swimming pool with high diving boards was simply awesome.

At the time, my siblings, cousins, friends and I spent most of our time swimming, and a fair amount of time cruising the streets on our skateboards. Ah, those were the days of little stress and worry, where the only concerns on my mind were (a) girls and (b) being back at the caravan in time for food. Those were the days...