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We left after breakfast for a 535km drive to Oudtshoorn (pronounced outs horn) along the famous Garden Route. We got stuck in a road works traffic jam for about an hour so that slowed things up a bit, okay a lot! But no signs to say so until you actually got to the spot.
MONKEY HEAVEN
We stopped at a place called Monkey Town (it only involved one u-turn to find it so we were happy with that).
It was a sanctuary for mostly rescued monkeys that people had as pets and then abandoned. It was set up really well, with you walking in a cage tunnel and all the monkeys out in the open. They weren’t interested with us until they heard Tim’s chocolate wrappers then they were interested!
DRIVING - RULES? NOT SO MUCH…
The drive to Oudtshoorn was beautiful, through all the mountains, valleys, forests and so many tight winding roads. The speed limit is 120kph, and not many stick to this, cars go flying passed you as though you were crawling at 50kph! Unlike in Australia, where if you see a police car everyone slows down and is not game to pass
(even if the police car is going under the speed limit) here everyone flies past the police, we never saw anyone pulled over.
Also, if someone is going slowly in front of you, they pull over into the emergency lane and then you pass - regardless if on a hill, a bend, or even if another car is coming - they will pull over into their emergency lane. Once passed you flash your hazard lights as a ‘thank you’ and they flash their headlights as a ‘you’re welcome’. All very polite and organized.
We saw some elephants on the way, but they were on a reserve, but still we saw elephants!
Got some petrol on the way, you don’t need to do anything; someone will fill your tank while someone else cleans your windows, not your windscreen but all the windows on your car. It only costs you and extra maybe 5 Rand (less than $1 Aus). There are some places you shouldn’t expect change when you pay, a taxi, a restaurant and a petrol station.
WHERE ON EARTH ARE WE GOING?
The road leading to Oudtshoorn is the tightest, narrowest most winding road we’ve
come across, everything slows up a bit now. The drop off along side the mountains as we drive are massive.
We have trouble finding our hotel on Carmen the Garmin, eventually we manage to find the restaurant address for the hotel, so on our way again.
We have always laughed at stupid tourists who follow GPS’s wherever it may tell them to go, regardless how ridiculous it seems, like driving down dirt tracks in Pine Plantations to get to Gin Gin for example.
We became those Stupid Tourists! Carmen gave us directions, she said turn left, we did: she said turn right, we did: she said follow road for 5 kms, we did: even though the road was a dirt road, with no street lights, no buildings, and then we saw it. A shanty township, lots of tin houses/huts, lots of people walking up the road looking at the silly very white tourists in their hire car… I’m sure I saw a bead of sweat starting to form on Tim’s forehead, me, I was nearly crying with laughter! But at the same time wondering where on Earth we were going to end up!
Eventually (and it seemed
like hours, was maybe 15 minutes!) we hit bitumen again, and saw a sign for our hotel - 1.5kms!
Really nice, very old worldly - no mobile reception, no internet and not even a telephone in the room.
We were meant to contact our Meerkat guide, Grant, to arrange place and time for meet up tomorrow morning. After many messages and phone calls (all made from one magic spot in the dining room where there is reception!), Tim eventually found a brochure with a different number on it. Called that one, got a guy called Devey who we found out had taken over the Meerkat sight from Grant. Arranged to meet tomorrow morning at 0645.
The guy working in the reception, Andre, was really really helpful, good for a long chat and perhaps a little hard to get away from. But better than the alternative…
We had dinner in their restaurant; we sat outside and had deer grazing just below us, right along a running stream - sooooo nice. They also had deer on the menu, hmmm.
They have 2 dogs here, a REALLY old Labrador called Blackie and a younger Kelpie/Border Collie type dog
In house pet dog
The biggest Great Dane I've ever seen. It6 lives at Monkey Towncalled Chloe. Both really friendly, although our first sighting of Chloe was as she flew past us in the restaurant with a stolen piece of steak!
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