Swartberg Pass, Ostriches and Cango Caves

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On leaving Hermanus, we took the scenic Route 62 towards Outdshoorn. This was a wonderful, windy route that took us through a number of passes with magnificient views into valleys and of a multitude of mountains, through a region known as the Little Karoo. It was completely different to the landscapes we had driven through up until now. We again got lucky with the weather as it was very pleasant. We stopped in a town called Barrydale for lunch and arrived in Oudtshoorn, late in the afternoon.

This town is well known for the many ostrich farms around it. Unfortunately, it wasn't the season for eating ostrich eggs so I was deprived of having an ostrich omelette, so I had to make do with an ostrich steak. I beat Dad in some more games of pool that night.

The next morning, Mum and I had signed up to go mountain biking down from the Swartberg Pass. To do this, we were taken in a van to the top of a mountain with our bikes and had to cycle the 52km back into town. The start of it was all downhill, going around multiple curves in the mountain, which was a lot of fun, even though the road was all gravel.

I had a problem with my bike after a while, as the chain kept on coming off, so I had to wait for our support van to arrive so I could change bikes. In the meantime, I got to take some photos of some of the wild ostriches and some of the stuning scenery. This was also the first time we had been out of the town and really into rural South Africa. We could see that some of the living conditions of the local black and coloured people, varied a lot from the neat and modern houses occupied, predominantly by the whites in the towns like Outdshoorn.

As we reached the bottom of the mountain and went back on to the main road, we continued through several winding passes until we were about 8 km out of town. From there it was one straight road, with a gradual decline all the way. It was pretty disheartening, as the road was so long, that it didn't seem like we were making any progress.

We eventually made it back though and met Dad for some lunch, before going to visit the Cango Caves. These are supposed to be one of South Africa's top ten tourist attractions and definitely are quite impressive, but a little underwhelming. We did elect to go for the standard tour, as opposed to the adventure tour, which may have been more interesting. Our guide was a bit of a character, who broke into singing the national anthem at various points.

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