Advertisement
Published: October 23rd 2018
Edit Blog Post
Day 26 Wednesday 17 October
This Explore trip certainly moves at a different pace to others we have taken. Checking back on the Explore website, on which they give each trip a 'pace' rating we find that all the other trips with them have been rated as 'full on' whilst this one is rated as 'medium'. In practical terms this is meaning long lunch breaks, up to 2 hours, and lots of 'free time', but often in hotels that are away from a town centre. Will need to look out for this on future bookings.
Today we passed through Worcester and Wellington (forgot to mention that a couple of days ago we travelled via Scarborough, Penzance, Clovelly and Llandudno ). These former 'colonies' always seem to like to reference their heritage. The route we are following travelling east from Cape Town is the inland Route 62 that goes via the Klein and Little Karoo arid areas (we do the more southerly Garden Route on the way back).
An initial stop at the Karoo Desert National Botanic Garden which is a haven for rare and endangered plants from the arid and semi-arid areas of Southern Africa.
At Barrydale,
while most of the group ate lunch - a lot of them seem to need 3 full meals per day - we walked up the road to Diesel and Crème diner to enjoy a 'gourmet' milkshake. On the road shortly afterwards we passed Ronnie's Sex Shop. Poor Ronnie: his 'mates' inserted 'sex' into his hand painted sign even before he had opened for business. Ronnie got the last laugh though as it became an iconic photo op site and thriving business. Ronnie is still there.
Our stay for two nights is on the edge of an outback town, Oudtshoorn, the centre of the ostrich farming industry. We visited an ostrich farm the following day but in the meantime Paul made do with a hearty ostrich fillet steak for dinner that night.
Day 27
After a brief walk around Oudtshoorn we were all off to the Cango Caves, Africa's premier show caves. And pretty impressive they were too. There are some truly wonderful formations inside.
Afterwards some chose to visit a wildlife park but a few of us went to an ostrich farm. There are around 200k ostrich farmed in the vicinity, striding the plains with their distinctive
nodding gait. In the 1920s, when ostrich feather outfits were all the rage, Oudtshoorn boomed. Now, the farm we visited gets an annual hefty order from the Rio Carnival and besides that the birds are mostly raised for meat and leather, taken when the birds are 'sent on holiday' at around 12 months.
There were pens of young ostrich, around 100 being looked after by a single adult pair, who for some reason are prepared to believe that all 100 are theirs. Pip got to stand on some (infertile ) eggs but they were more than a match for her slight weight!
On Day 28 it was hoped that some of the group would get to do a whale watch cruise but the winds and sea swell put paid to that idea. After crossing the Outeniqua Pass, which separates the dry interior from the lush coast, we found ourselves on the famed 'garden route'. We were taken to the Robberg Peninsula, named after the seal colony found there by Dutch sailors. We had a bracing 5km walk!! Our guide had described it as 'easy, flat'. We would describe it as 'medium+, mostly rocky, significant ups and down, with
noticeable rock scrambling parts where a modicum of rock climbing experience may be useful '! But the views and flowers were very good. But no whales were spotted.
After a 2 hour lunch stop it was on to our next 2 night stay in Knysna. Knysna is a popular artists' retreat, twice voted as SA's favourite town. It was originally a lucrative harbour, forestry and mining centre, established as a commercial town by the reputed illegitimate son of George III, George Rex. His wealth was built on the placid nature of the lagoon from which goods could be easily transported.
Day 29
And still all local whale watch boats are not sailing, not that we are bothered as this is an 'option' we are not doing.
A trip east along the coast to the Tsitsikama National Park, which stretches for 80 km. Tsitsikama is a Khoi word meaning 'place of abundant water'. It is one of the largest, single unit 'no take', including fishing, Marine Protected Areas in the world. It conserves 11% of SA's Temperate South Coast rocky shoreline amd is a baseline lab for research on endangered line fish species.
Most of us took
an easy - correctly rated - walk out and back to a set of suspension bridges before spending time watching the waves crashing big time onto the shoreline rocks, waiting on a small group who had opted for a canopy zip-line tour.
Day 30
Leaving Lagoona Inn, Kynysa - and our colourful Austro-German host Gunther.... "don't touch!!" he barked at Paul when he dared to depress the handle on the toaster - we had one final destiny with a 'big 5' opportunity.
The Botlierskop Private Game Reserve is 3500 hectares situated between the Swartberg Mountains behind and Mossel Bay on the Indian Ocean coast. We had a 3 hour African massage in the rear of an open, seated truck, exposed to the full off-ocean winds at the park's high lands.
Lots of new antelopes - black impala, bontebok, black springbok, and a pair of delightful meerkats, but still no lions. You'd have thought that they could have radio tagged the pack leader at least?
A quick stop at the Sunday-closed Swellendam and then off to our remote hut for a night. A lovely setting on the banks of the Breede River but a shame that we
were not in until late afternoon and then off again after breakfast. It appeared that we were back in mossie country as there were mosquito nets on our beds. But we survived without a single bite!
Day 31
Was mostly about getting back to Cape Town, but by the longer, southerly route to get to the most southern tip of Africa, Cape Agulhas, where the Indian and Atlantic Oceans meet.
The 'whale route' then took us to Hermanus with perfect timing. As we pulled up into the car park, in the bay, barely 100m away, were Southern Right Whales dotted about. Whilst there were no dramatic breaches or such, they were just idling away time on the surface. They come here to calve and it did seem that they were pairs of different sized animals out there.
A whale watch without the expense of a boat trip. After about an hour they were mostly gone.
Final journey back to CT in fan oven heat again. We are here for a week with lots of things to do.
Advertisement
Tot: 0.072s; Tpl: 0.012s; cc: 7; qc: 24; dbt: 0.0514s; 1; m:domysql w:travelblog (10.17.0.13); sld: 1;
; mem: 1.1mb