Week 3 Knysna to Plettenberg Bay

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Wed 30
Did some odd jobs this morning - went to the tourist information place where they helped me arrange a ride to Plettenberg Bay for later in the week Its a real shame that she felt the need to “warn me” that the driver was black. She did however also find me some interesting looking accommodation. I found a really well stocked book exchange shop where I took a couple of the novels I had finished and got credit against some new ones. It was a great place and exchanges are quite common here - I wish we had something similar in the UK

Tina had kindly offered to drive me around the local area in exchange for lunch We visited various places including Brenton and Sedgefield, saw amazing beaches, huge sand dunes, the lakes and the nature reserve. The area is full of pine forest and where they meet the lakes it reminded me of the Canadian wilderness. Its a lovely area and if you are into hiking or watersports its a good place and it will be wonderful on the beaches in the summer.

Had a quick lunch at a golf club with great views over to the mountains and then drove back to get drinks at a bar overlooking the Knysna Heads which are two high cliffs either side of where the lagoon meets the sea. The tide was coming in and it was a truly spectacular setting with waves crashing in on the rocks.

Caught up on emails and this blog then watched TV for a change. The TV is not very good at all and there is a pretty poor choice of channels but they have a movie channel in the guest house so watched a film and early night.

Thurs 1 October
I like staying in one place for several days as its more relaxing that being on the road or trying to organise your travel and next accommodation. Its bad enough living out of a case, but its worse if you are having to pack and carry it every day. I will probably try to find good bases to stay for a while and then just do day trips during the rest of my World trip, rather than trying to travel in straight lines and being constantly on the move. It also takes longer than I thought to organise the next stops and to travel, so I don’t want to be wasting that time on a daily basis.

Its starting to dawn on me that I can make choices and change plans and that I have all the time I want to enjoy the stuff that is good and to move on if its not. Its taking me a while to start to think like a traveller rather than a person on a normal annual holiday where you are trying to pack everything in to your brief visit. Its a strange but lovely feeling.

Today the weather was changeable so stayed around Knysna town and checked out some more of the interesting shops. When the sun finally came out I relaxed around the guest house patio, read a bit and chatted to Tina who kindly offered me a lift to Plettenberg Bay tomorrow and will stay for lunch, so I went back to the tourist office to cancel my ride..

Well it really kicked off tonight at the pub next door. It had been quite loud all evening with high volume music (but great choice of songs) and lots of good times were being had as the laughter and shouting was loud. Around 1am there was a huge altercation and a fight outside, just under my window. Being a nosy cow I peeped out safe behind my curtains, but the actual punching was over by the time I looked out and one chap was on the deck. My concern turned quickly to amusement as two very drunk middle aged men had a nose-to-nose verbal at the top of their voices for about 45 minutes, both obviously thinking they were putting up a well considered and delivered argument. In actual fact they each had about 4 lines of garbled nonsense that they repeated over and over, whilst trying to wave their fingers under the other guys nose or poke him on the shoulder at the same time as trying to stay upright. Their hand control was about as efficient as their shouted threats and both fell over a couple of times and a some chairs and glasses got in the way and ended up on the ground too. After nearly an hour of this rubbish they ended up hugging and telling each other what a great mate the other was. And they say we girls are slushy. Very funny to watch but I could have done without the 2am timeframe.

Fri 2 Oct
Tina and her friend Kim came to pick me up around 11am and we drove the 30 minutes or so to Plettenberg Bay. First we went to a restaurant called Emily Moons which is perched high above a meandering river valley with gorgeous views across the reed beds, looping river and distant mountains. The decor and ambience was lovely and I bet it is a romantic place to go at night for dinner - with a man with a large bank account. We only stopped for drinks and shared a bottle of wine.

We drove down into Plett as the locals say. Its interesting that here in South Africa they do the same as the Australians and shorten any long names and lengthen any short ones. Other examples locally are Jeffreys Bay known as JBay and Port Elizabeth is just PE.

We dropped my bag off at the guest house - more about that later - and headed to a nice beachfront restaurant called the Look Out which had 260 degree views of the ocean. The food here was great and we had a mixture of seafood dishes that we all dug into, including a delicious prawn and tuna gratin, kingclip goujons, mussels, calamari, etc. We had a very leisurely time and some very nice wines - I loved the name of one called “fat bastard”.

The town is built up a very steep hill from the beach and at times the road was almost vertical with tight twisty bends. Tina’s car hardly coped and at times we thought we would stall and roll backwards. I am going to have to climb this mountain (OK big hill) several times over the next few days. I bet the locals all have big chunky calf muscles and permanently walk bent at a 45 degree angle.

I spent a quiet evening settling into the new place and slept like a log after drifting off to the sound of the waves hitting the beach just below me.

Sat 3 Oct
So let me tell you about this magical place. The guest house is called Stone Cottage Beach Shack and I have a lovely twin room with a kitchenette and a large deck overlooking a 180 degree view of the bay. Due to the steep terrain, the tops of the trees from the garden below are around my deck, so it feels as if I am in a forest canopy with varied birdlife that is bloody noisy at dawn and dusk. The bathroom has a shower with pebble floor and a stable door to the outside so you can have a tree view as you wash your hair with the top door open. The decor is seaside shabby chic, with lots of driftwood and pastel “new england/cape cod” colours. Its VERY relaxing and bohemian. I struck a deal for 3 nights including breakfast.

Apart from the vibe, the main reason its magical is that this bay is just full of amazing sights. There are whales doing all the fun stuff I saw at Hermanus, including todays display of a mother teaching her calf how to breach - they both went up together 5 times in unison and then a few minutes later the calf tried on its own 3 times. There are also dolphins and seals.

Over the most delicious breakfast we watched as a pod of about 10 dolphins started to work their way across the bay. A few minutes later another pod followed the same route, all leaping out and some spinning. Minutes later another lot, then more, etc. In total upwards of a hundred dolphins passed in front of me in the time it took to eat sausage, egg, bacon, mushrooms and toast. You only have to gaze out to sea for a few minutes and you see amazing stuff here.

Apparently in addition to the Southern Right whales, occasionally Orcas come into the bay. When they get between the dolphins and the open sea the dolphins gather into a huge superpod of over a thousand strong and can be seen inshore in the surf line. Although I don’t want them to get trapped by the Orcas, I would love to see that.

The weather was strange today Started foggy and then was glorious sunshine, so I sat and read on the deck and took in the rays. About 2.30pm strands of ice-cold foggy cloud came rolling in which was a really weird feeling. One minute you are sat baking in the sun and then tendrils of foggy fingers wrapped around you and chilled you, then the sun came through again - it was like having a free sauna and ice dip experience.

Early in the evening I walked up the hill, stopping every few minutes to take in the view - no, you guessed it, I was trying to catch my breath. Went to a nice Italian restaurant for a leisurely dinner and then took the much easier route down the hill home before it got dark.


Sun 4 Oct
Chatted to a guy over breakfast who is staying here to do some skydiving He had also seen the mother and calf breaching yesterday but from the sky as he was freefalling - I guess he trumped my viewing. We saw about 14 dolphins playing in the surf directly below us on the beach during todays breakfast but I didn’t have my camera with me. They spent about 25 minutes gradually working their way across the full plane of our view and looked as if they were having loads of fun.

There are 2 whale/dolphin/seal watching boats that launch from the beach immediately below the guest house and they are pretty good indicators of where the action is, as you can see them heading off towards things you may have missed. There are plenty of binoculars to borrow here too but unfortunately my camera is just not capturing the sights in enough detail to warrant publishing. Anyway its far more enjoyable to just sit and watch them and the whale breaching or dolphin back-flips only last for a second or two which makes it hard to capture on film. Truth is, I have not yet read the manual and figured out how to do fast shots.

Bit of a cloudy and changeable day today and we had some very light rain in the afternoon. There is a sailcloth canopy over part of my deck so I am under that, drafting this blog and glancing up to watch 4 whales that are playing just in front of me. For once I don’t mind the rain. Also there is a scheduled all day power cut from 6am to 6pm (I guess they are doing major repairs) so I have been up for coffee and chats with the managers Ady and her husband Greg as they have a gas stove upstairs. We have also started to discuss the best way of getting to my next destination, which is not proving easy. If you don’t hire a car, the choice of transport is limited and if you need to go somewhere off the coast route, its non-existent.

There is no wifi here and I cant find any strong-enough signals in the area at all, so cant publish blog updates or check emails. Its not easy to get onto the web here so please bear with me if you don’t get email answers for several days.

Went to dinner up at the main house with Ady and Greg. Ady is half Italian and is a brilliant cook but she had to prepare everything by candlelight as the power cut went on until 10pm. It was nice eating our steak and salad by a combination of moonlight and candles.

Mon 5 Oct Plettenberg Bay 4
Its Spring here and again the weather is changeable with sunshine for a few hours in the morning and then cloud all afternoon. Nice temperatures though in the mid 20’s. I had a robin hopping around me on the deck this morning which was an unexpected sight.

Although I had underestimated the distances and time/effort to get there without a car, I had made up my mind in England that the farthest east I intended to head was to Addo Elephant Reserve. I have managed to organise a bus to Port Elizabeth for Wednesday and found a guest house near the south gate of Addo where the owner Maggie said she would collect me from the PE bus drop. Went to town to pick up the bus ticket. Extended my stay at Stone Cottage for another couple of nights.

Had a lovely dinner in a restaurant in town and got chatting to a couple of Irish guys called Con and Paddy (yes, really). They were doing similar things to me but unfortunately were headed in the opposite direction so I couldn’t bag any lifts. They walked me down the hill as it was quite dark by the time we left, which was very gallant as they had to climb most of the way back up to their own digs.

Tues 6 Oct Plettenberg Bay 5
Today the weather was dry but completely overcast and I was just trying to decide what to do with myself, as Stone Cottage is really a sunshine-required type of place, when Con and Paddy turned up and told me to change my flipflops for trainers and come with them - quick. So quick in fact that I didn’t pick up my camera, sadly.

They had booked a 2 hour trek in the Tsitsikamma National Park at Natures Valley (called NV by the locals, of course) and one of their friends who was going now couldn’t make it so they gave me her place. Free trips are not to be sneezed at on my budget so, although it involved some steep walking over rough ground, I jumped at the offer.

The main thing in NV is N. The trek was rather like an Ozzy bush walk, with lots of interesting trees, yellowwood, ironwood, stinkwood (you get the picture) and pretty streams with waterfalls. We saw a couple of antelope and a huge range of birds, but I cant remember many of their names. And loads of ferns of all shapes and colours.

We also stopped off and saw the Bloukrans Bungy which is the highest commercial jump in the southern hemisphere at just under 200 metres The bridge was over a spectacular gorge that opens to the sea at the far end. Unfortunately the wind was really strong so there were no jumpers to watch but there were quite a few poor mugs that were waiting to go and by the look of them the wait was making their nerves worse. There were some pretty highly strung punters in the coffee hut playing that 7 second fall through their heads. Daft buggers.

Got dropped off in town and window shopped and got some food for a picnic supper back at the guest house. Quiet night. Have enjoyed Plett but I am ready to move on now.

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Comments

[Kim]

Dolphins,whales,what next?
First you tell me about the game and elephants then you tell in detail about the dolphins and whales!!! Nan, Pop and I went all the way south of Perth to Cape Nat to see them and they weren there now i know you were hogging them! LOL It all sounds and looks amazing what earth has to offer. Looking forward to next blog:) XKIM