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Published: September 16th 2023
Me, Cape Agulhas
Africa's Southernmost PointDear All
I continue to drive along South Africa's Garden Route, the first leg of my epic Cape Town to Johannesburg adventure, from Cape Town to Port Elizabeth. I hit the road again the day after my whale watching trip in Hermanus, and had very much another driving day - I think there will be plenty more of these to come as South Africa is such a huge country, and my trip is not a simple down-the-road one. Fortunately I brought a good mix of songs on my MP3 player which I could listen to along the way - lots of classic US "Road Trip Anthems"!
After bidding farewell to my cute and cosy cottage in Hermanus, I drove two hours firstly southeastwards to Cape Agulhas, learning quite quickly not to religiously follow my "Here We Go" satnav instructions as one of the directions would have had me driving across a farmer's field! While the more famous Cape of Good Hope south of Cape Town is billed as Africa's most south-westerly point, the lesser-known Cape Agulhas is in fact it's southernmost point, and is actually where the Atlantic and Indian Oceans meet. Things began to get a bit warmer
Pontoon Bridge
Wilderness Section, Garden Route National Park from thereon, as the cold southern ocean and air currents from Antarctica began to give way to the more pleasant, tropical breezes from the Indian Ocean. As one might expect, the waves were ferocious at the Cape, it was definitely not a place to swim! I was surprised that there were hardly any other people around taking pictures like myself, but also I guess not surprised as it is a little way off the beaten Garden Route trail - two hours in fact.
I filled my four-wheeled friend up at a local petrol station in the nearby and friendly town of L'Agulhas, noting that not only do the attendants in South Africa fill her up for you, they also wipe down both front and back windscreens, and offer to check your tyres, oil and water! At only £1 per litre, with the other stuff included free of charge (although I always gave a generous tip for this as I was most impressed with this service!), I wasn't complaining!
I then filled myself up for lunch at a nearby KFC, where the server automatically spoke to me in Afrikaans! Not only did this surprise me, it also surprised me
Knysna Lagoon
Viewed from the Knysna Township that I just about understood what he was saying! That was, I should park my car over there as my fries weren't ready yet, but he'd bring them over when they were. My smidgen of self-taught Afrikaans was beginning to come in handy, along with the fact that a number of words are similar between Afrikaans and English given the former's Dutch origins. A four hour drive later brought me to the small town of Wilderness, during which I continued to note just how courteous South African drivers were thus far. They will always pull in slightly if you need to overtake, with the hard shoulder on a single-lane carriageway being primarily used for this. After overtaking, it is common for the overtaker to briefly turn on their hazard lights to say thank you, and for the overtakee to flash their headlights to say you're welcome! Drivers will also often let others go before themselves, and regularly say thank you with a hand, smile or a nod. Of course I've been following suit too, as I'm a big fan of courtesy when driving, and this was a nice welcome relief after the increasingly road-raged UK.
I believe Wilderness is
Me
Knysna Lagoon Catamaran Cruise mostly famous for its vast swathe of wild coastline and beach, although I headed instead to its section of the Garden Route National Park for a hike in the forests instead, since I'd thus far seen quite a bit of coastline. I was up for seeing something a bit different. I enjoyed a lovely two-mile walk through a delightful slice of forest along a river bank there, just as the sun was beginning to set and cause the whole forest and hillsides to glow a magical colour. This, along with croaking frogs and birdsong, made for a lush and magical walk. A highlight also was using a floating pontoon bridge, on which to cross the river you had to ferry yourself across with its self-propelled rope and pulley system - very cool!
Although I was aiming to arrive in my accommodation in Knysna before sundown this time, I still ended up arriving in the town 15 minutes after darkness had set in. This wasn't as bad as my arrival in Hermanus when it was also raining, but loadshedding in Knysna had begun already at 6pm, and this included all the traffic lights going off as well as the street
Cape Agulhas
Africa's Southernmost Point lights! This was just crazy, and I had about ten busy, light-less junctions to negotiate before arriving at my accommodation. The whole loadshedding thing makes things so unsafe, and I can imagine causes numerous deaths and injuries if the government could bother to look into this - I understand why it is currently the bane of many-a South Africans' lives at the moment, from all walks of life. At least also under these circumstances, drivers are very polite and orderly, and always go by the rule of whoever arrives first at a junction has right of way - it is very orderly, and fortunately such situations I encountered throughout the country did not ever lead to any form of gridlock. I think the people in the country are used to this, though it would still take me a while to get accustomed myself.
My accommodation at least was gorgeous and very comfortable, and the hosts super-friendly and welcoming. The electricity was coming on around an hour after my arrival, so I was very much looking forward to all the exciting stuff that that would entail once more - heating, lighting, making dinner, and checking my email.
My full
day in Knysna was really nice. After waking up in a little paradise of a cottage accommodation overlooking a cute little garden filled with birds, which I couldn't really appreciate the evening before due to the darkness, I did a lovely Knysna Township tour run by some very friendly and welcoming township locals. In fact, the tour's manager has a similar surname to mine: "Mainwaring", pronounced "Mannering", so we had a few laughs about distance relations and things. My tour group and I were met at the beautiful Knysna Waterfront, more on that below, and driven up into the hill overlooking the town by a hugely enthusiastic tour guide and a fun driver, who introduced us to the "Big Five" of the Township: dogs, pigs, goats, cows and sheep! I noted that most urban places I'd been in in South Africa had a well-to-do area where the wealthier people lived, and usually an adjoining area where the poorer people in society lived. These were often originally built as informal settlements initially, but the government particularly in the immediate aftermath of the end-of-Apartheid under Mandela developed many into fully-functioning towns with decent housing, electricity and water supplies. Knysna's Township was no
Eagle
Cape Agulhas different, and it was fascinating to explore the place, which even had its own shopping mall with a supermarket, cafes and restaurants, as well as wonderful, commanding views over the beautiful Knysna Lagoon below. The place felt a world apart from the places I'd been visiting and staying in thus far in South Africa, and felt much more akin to other African countries I've visited on my travels, such as Kenya, Malawi and Senegal. It was non-stop busy, with non-stop noise and action, and you had to be constantly careful where you tread.
We learned about the living conditions up there, particularly the hardships faced by locals who start having children in their teens. Our guide additionally runs two homes for children whose parents can't look after them, housing about 30 children in total - huge kudos to the lady! I could tell immediately that she was Christian, and herself and Mrs Mainwaring set up this tourist initiative after they had met at church one day a few years ago - helping tourists get to know this side of South Africa, while generating sorely-needed income for the community. We visited a local grocery store, stocked with maize meal used
Eagle
Cape Agulhas to make the local African staple called Pap, which I came to try later on my journey. It looks like mashed potato but is slightly stodgier and tastes more like rice. We then headed on to a local kindergarten, filled with happy and bubbling little kiddies singing nursery rhymes that I myself used to sing as a child - not too much of a world apart there! Being a school teacher myself, I am always fascinated to visit and learn about schools in other countries. I particularly liked seeing their school rules, not dissimilar to our own, and the fact that they learn three languages there: English, Xhosa and Afrikaans.
Next we headed off to our tour guide's house for tea and biscuits, a lesson in the local African language of Xhosa, and some African drumming. Xhosa is the South African language famed for its clicking sounds, and there are around four different clicks that they incorporate into the words of their language, depending on which part of your mouth you suck with your tongue. We finally drove back into Knysna, stopping off at a roadside barbecue shack that was preparing a South African township delicacy called "Smileys". These
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Cape Agulhas are barbecued sheep heads cut in half lengthways, so named because of the bearing of the sheep's teeth when cooked. This was definitely not a local cuisine that I aimed to sample on my journey.
The tour ended in Knysna just in time for lunch, when I had one of my many steak and chips meals at the very attractive Knysna Waterfront. The town of Knysna (pronounced "nize-ner") is situated on the shores of a beautifully placid lagoon, surrounded by attractive rolling hills to the north, and encircled by two promontory cliffs to the south which do not quite touch at a place called the Knysna Rocks, allowing the see water to enter and leave the lagoon. It is a beautifully-set town. After dropping to a freezing 3 degrees C the night before, the sun was out on this day and it was a balmy 20 degrees in the afternoon. It was a good chance to just chill and soak up the sun, as while it is winter here and the temperatures drop sharply at night, South Africans don't seem to do much in terms of heating their houses. I imagine this is because they care more about keeping
cool in their hot summers rather than warm in their brief winters.
So my final activity for the day involved taking a lovely and relaxing catamaran boat tour of the lovely Knysna Lagoon, out to the Knysna Rocks and back. While the waters are serene on the surface, due to their connection to the Indian Ocean beyond the lagoon, they are home to five different shark species. Also, as the 200 metre gap between the rocks is so narrow where the lagoon meets the sea, the waters there are so treacherous that boats have to have a special license from the government to be able to make the passage. Our boat did, but only went about halfway through the passage as the waters were so choppy and dangerous - I was quite glad about this I must admit, considering the size of the waves breaking off shore in the distance!
After the wonderfully relaxing boat excursion, I drove back to my accommodation this time in the daylight, but again with loadshedding and thus no traffic lights. This time there were local traffic police directing the traffic, making the journey back much easier than the day before.
Knysna
Wilderness Section
Garden Route National Park was just lovely, and I really enjoyed my time there. Still, I was looking forward to more Garden Route adventures as I continued eastwards along it the next day, before heading on to the famous Addo Elephant Park for two nights. Of course, there will be more on that in my next one. Until then, thanks for reading, and all the best for now!
Alex
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D MJ Binkley
Dave and Merry Jo Binkley
Beauty of the Eagle
Nice close up!