Blogs from Tsitsikamma National Park, Western Cape, South Africa, Africa - page 2

Wrote this part at 6am in Wilderness: I talked to the girls at midnight on the deck, and finally the clouds had completely blown away. There was a full blanket of stars! After so many cloudy nights, it was wonderful to see them. So many stars that I could not recognize any constellations due to the noise of the "extra" stars. The girls are doing fine although Kimberly does obviously miss me very much. It's now almost 6am - I woke up at 5 and couldn't get back to sleep so I came out here, back out on the deck. The sunrise is beautiful, there is a lone kayaker on the lagoon, and many different bird calls. The clouds are just plentiful enough to make a nice colorful sunrise, and the wisps of clouds look quite ... read more

Hi All, We finally arrived home at about 9 pm on Friday, 20th February and now that I have my internet back I am going to take you through the rest of our fabulous trip. In this way you won't have to sit through looking at all my photos later on. Above is a map which I hope will show you our journey. I will begin on the 26th January which was the day after the braai and when we began our tour of the garden route which takes in part of the western and eastern capes of South Africa. We left Riversdale at about 1 pm and decided to take a quick trip down to Still Bay. However, it was a lot further than we had thought and by the time we got back onto ... read more

So Sunday night we were in Oudtshoorn at the Backpackers Paradise. Oudtshoorn is surrounded by mountains: the Langeberg and the Outeniqua. It was our first night back in tents! Weird. Sarah and I are sharing now and we took over Warthog, Tom and Will's tent because they said everything worked on it. Sure enough, it was easy to set up, but then we tried to open the zipper and their padlock was still on it! So we were locked out of our own tent! Luckily Pat and James knew the combination... Monday morning we had ostrich eggs for breakfast. Chicken eggs are better. The ostrich eggs were too rich, almost fishy tasting. After breakfast we went to Cango Caves. They have some of the biggest stalagmites in the world. Some of us went on the adventure ... read more

This was one hell of a drive..... but the views were worth it. We basically travelled on 6 hours of dusty tracks and our hire car had turned orange as a result. The Pass was built by the Victorians and still is a feat of engineering today.... read more

We arrived in Storms River Village, which is right next to the Tsitsikamma (ta-tit-see-kama) National Park, basically an indigenous forest and ocean wildlife santuary, and checked into Tsitsikamma Backpackers, a quiet and very clean establishment. There wasn't much going on here, and nothing as far as ambiance goes, but we needed a night to rest. We found the Rafters restaurant and sat outside amidst lots of birds, plants, and a little stream to provide some music. Filled with a great meal of fish curry, tomatoe bredie (a lamb stew), and some more good wine, we walked back to the backpackers for some sleep. The next day we switched to a place with more of a lively atmosphere-- Tube n' Axe Backpackers. We dropped our things off and drove a short distance to the Tsitsikamma National Park. ... read more