Tsitsikamma is Just a Fun Word to Say

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Tuesday 4-5 to Wednesday 4-6
Around Tsitsikamma, we visited the largest and oldest (700 years) yellowwood tree in South Africa, known as the Big Tree. Considering the giant red woods in the U.S. and the giant fig trees we’ve seen in Australia and Costa Rica, this tree paled in comparison. Not so impressive and sadly not very yellow ;o) But it was nice to take a stroll in the crisp morning air. I didn’t realize how much of South Africa is managed forest. Everywhere we drove, we passed acre after acre of planted pine trees and logging trucks.

More impressive than the Big Tree was the world’s tallest bungee jump (217m) at Bloukrans River. We watched the jumpers while sipping our hot, creamy beverages from the safety and comfort of a viewing platform. It was cool to watch but about as close to bungee jumping as I’ll ever get.

We then headed to see the one African animal we were unable to see in the wild: the cheetah (aside from a male lion which I was REALLY hoping to see! :o( Bummer.) Needless to say, we still haven’t seen these animals in the wild. We went to an African cat sanctuary; so they were still in captivity, but we did get to see some cool cats like African wild cats (which just look like house cats), servals, and caracals. One lady in our tour group freaked out when she passed by a large spider web. The spider didn’t even touch her, didn’t even move a muscle, and she ran out of the enclosure, crying in hysterics. I felt bad for the tour guide who seemed completely taken off guard and not sure what to do with her. An 8 year old boy was so scared, his dad had to carry him around the whole time, and he wasn’t a small child by any means (poor dad)! I did have to laugh at his plight, though (I know: how cruel to laugh at a child crying, but it was frickin’ funny!), when the leopard saw this small, chunky (and what I can only assume the leopard thought as tasty) child and leapt at him through the cage several times. There was no way the cat could get to him through the fence, but it was pretty awesome to see this magnificent animal stalk the little boy and leap several feet off the ground to try and catch him! It was awesome! I was so close to the leopard at one point when he leapt against the fence, that I was able to reach out and touch him! His fur was SO SOFT!!

Towards the end of the day, we headed to Nature’s Valley (no granola bars in sight, though) for a short hike through the forest and ended up on the beach, where dead and washed ashore was the largest sea jelly I have ever seen! It was at least two feet wide and light purple. I flipped it over and it had very short, fluffy tentacles, kind of like an upside down jelly. The coolest part was all the carnivorous snails that were crawling out of the water to feast upon it – they seriously looked like a sea creature invasion from a bad sci-fi movie. The snails were everywhere! (Yammy, you would have loved it! A whole new way to bait the whelks for invert training!)

We woke up the next day in Plettenberg Bay and took advantage of their hammocks for awhile before heading out to Knysna. Sadly, what started out as a great idea to drive coast to coast across South Africa has turned out to be quite tiring when you drive from one place to the next every single day! We kind of wish we could stay in one spot for more than a day. Oh well. We made the most of the day and took a beautiful hike around Robberg Nature Reserve, a small, rocky peninsula with spectacular views of the Indian Ocean! It was breathtaking!

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