The Garden Route

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Stellenbosch came as a welcome antidote to the rigours of Cape Town. This is a relaxed town of oak lined boulevards and whitewashed Dutch houses, many dating from the late 1700s. Our hostel doubled as the last overnight stop for some of the overland truck companies, so we shared it with parties of excitable young people who were completing the best experience of their lives (- or worst, I expect, but we never heard from them).


Swellendam, the third oldest town in South Africa (after Cape Town and Stellenbosch) lies under a rotund mountain range that traps the clouds, giving us a rainy stop. Some of the oldest buildings here have been turned into a rather excellent multi-site museum reproducing those early days.


In Mossel Bay we spent the night in a tiny compartment in a railway carriage converted into a backpackers hostel at the sea's edge. It seemed like a good idea at the time. Only memorable was the fact that Linda saw a large creepie-crawlie on the wall and insisted on sleeping fully clothed with the light on. However many times I said, “Hey, this is Africa”, she remained unmoved.


Things got a little more interesting when we stayed in an old farmhouse on the edge of the small town of Wilderness. Whilst others went off hiking in the forest we contented ourselves with a 2km walk along the riverside to a spacious, sparsely used beach. (Me: “There are leopards living in these forests”. Linda: “Is that wise?”). We were now along the coast of the Indian Ocean so the water was easily get-innable and had decent waves.


Arriving at the backpackers hostel in Knysna we found that they had cocked up our booking and there was no room available for the second night. Linda bravely agreed to spend the night in the dormitory, sleeping fully clothed (again) in the presence of four men. We liked Knysna. It is situated on the edge of a lagoon which we hiked around to reach the narrow inlet to the sea. Linda exercised her poor choice in footwear and ended up with a matching set of giant blisters on each foot, which crocked her for the rest of the week.


We were now well into the so-called Garden Route along the West coast.

In Plettenberg Bay we hit the jackpot with a superb backpackers hostel, outclassing most hotels. This is a resort town with a couple of popular beaches and a very picturesque lagoon where a river backs up from the sea.

We met up with Cecelia's brother Mike (remember Cecelia from Turkey?). He showed us around some of the local housing areas – it's not all township shacks. We then went back to his place to see how an expat Brit might live.

I remember saying how everything was going too well and how dull my journal was going to be. The next day we got the news that Linda's brother Peter had died unexpectedly. Linda felt strongly that she wished to return to the UK for the funeral so I organised the flight home for her using a telephone travel agent (no flight websites in SA). This meant that we had to catch the next available bus back to Cape Town to collect the ticket during working hours the next day.

Seats were found on an overnight bus using the company that used to transport the workers from the homelands to the cities. For the first time in South Africa we were the only white people on a full, cramped, bus. This was clearly much more of a novelty to us than to the other occupants as we were largely ignored.

Later we presented ourselves to the Flight Centre office to discover that our reservation had been cancelled, leading to a stressful half hour while other tickets were put together, and the loss of 24 hour as the next flight was another days wait.



This time in Cape Town we stayed out of the city centre in the much more pleasant environment of the Deco Lodge, which had been recommended to us but is not mentioned in either the Lonely Planet or Rough guides.

Then owner and I dropped Linda off at the airport on Sunday night and I moved into the dormitory for the eleven days of her absence. The other occupants of the dorm were all long termers: A German student doing a Masters degree in biochemistry; a Dutch guy doing a phD project redesigning the clay pigeon launcher; a gay unemployed actor and an African trying to establish a backpackers magazine. Bizarrely they hardly seemed to know each other, probably due to the strange hours they kept.

The students went to bed in the small hours and got up at 6 or 7 am. The actor stayed out all night and slept all day and the would-be publisher only made an appearance every few days. Consequently when I went to bed at 11.30 pm I had the room to myself and generally got a good nights sleep.

The lodge contained an interesting mix of backpackers, overlanders and long stayers and the atmosphere was really friendly, fostered by the exuberant staff. I made particular friends with a couple of German girls – Margrit and Nicole – and joined them on a hike to the top of Table Mountain from Kirstenbosch Gardens. I'd been at the lodge for seven days before it occurred to me that I was the only Brit staying there.



Linda arrived back from the UK in good spirits, despite having to endure a night alone in Johannesburg airport. Commenting on the flight she said, “I was put in a small compartment at the front and they kept coming round with free drinks and chocolates”. She had been upgraded to first class and hadn't even realised! After a day to reacclimatize in Cape Town we caught the early morning bus to Plettenberg Bay to resume our travels in time for Easter.

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