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Published: January 21st 2011
Port Elizabeth As we flew into Port Elizabeth from Joburg I did think to myself the end is nigh with only 9 or 10 days left before heading back to the UK to enjoy Christmas and New Year with family and friends and then start our working lives again. It did dawn on me that being it was the final 9 or 10 days that Tracy and I must go out with a bang.
So to start our garden route trip we picked up our extremely small Chevrolet Spark Car, from the airport, that couldn’t fit both our bags in the boot but could with the back seat down and proceeded onto our hostel in Port Elizabeth itself where we would spend the night. I should say at this point that our flight from Joburg to Port Elizabeth with 1time was fine, on time and perfectly comfortable, very good for its 70 quid each cost. As Tracy said before the Life hotel in Joburg was very nice for the cost and it was nice to sleep in a real bed again after being in a tent for the previous two weeks. The hostel in Port Elizabeth was clean and
tidy, nothing special but fine for its money.
So after arriving at the Kings Beach Backpackers hostel Tracy and I ventured out to take in the local area and get something to eat and right away found a fish and chip shop pretty much on the sea front. Now I have eaten more fish and chips in South Africa in the past 3 – 4 weeks than I have in the prior 3 – 4 years whilst travelling, living in the UK and living in Bermuda. Absolutely loving the quality and price of the fish in South Africa and that’s from eating it in good quality restaurants to plain old traditional fish and chip shops.
Unfortunately that’s about the best thing I could say about Port Elizabeth. The weather wasn’t that great, overcast and pretty windy, so that didn’t help and to be fair we didn’t venture that far. However, it did remind me a lot of Blackpool in England with its sea front, lights and fun fair area, which in itself would be fine but in the distance you could see great big electricity generator plants which very much spoilt the view. We walked along the beach
front and grabbed a drink at one of the bars, nothing too exciting, things generally seemed very quiet, maybe because it was a Sunday (December 5th), either way it made up our minds for us in that we decided not to stay another day but to instead on Monday hit the road.
Jeffrey’s Bay/St Francis Bay So up bright and early to weather that was much the same to the day before, Tracy and I made our way to popular and pretty beach resorts of Jeffrey’s Bay and St Francis Bay. Before this however we thought we would take in the Red Location museum, which was supposed to highlight African history and apartheid history. So I drove to it, but it was in the middle of a township in Port Elizabeth. I am sorry but it just looked far too sketchy, no white men around and lots of shack accommodation and buildings with people sitting around looking at us. This is the thing about the townships they are right beside all major towns, usually within a mile of it. We had been told more than once that we have no business being in them and to stay away,
I took this advice very seriously and on this occasion did not even get out of the car, that being the case no museum today and on to Jeffrey’s Bay.
Well what a contrast. It took only an hour or so to get to Jeffrey’s Bay but it was a real surfer/beach bum town, with plenty of restaurants and bars in older looking almost run down buildings. The whole area really did remind me of Byron Bay (only smaller) in Australia. I can imagine if the weather was good it would be heaving with 20 something year old surfer dudes walking round in board shorts carrying surf boards trying, and I guess somewhat succeeding, to look cool. To be fair we took a walk along the beach and it was pretty busy bearing in mind it was a Monday and the mixed weather conditions. I did stick my feet in the ocean as it was now the supposedly warmer Indian Ocean as opposed to the colder Atlantic Ocean that I stuck my feet in at Camps Bay in Cape Town a few weeks earlier. Both damn cold in my opinion and with that prognosis not a cat in hells
Lovely water at St Francis Bay
And very quiet too, there were only a couple of people on the beachchance of getting Tracy to try it what so ever. Still that hadn’t deterred many South Africans who were in there on their surfboards riding what waves they could. All in all in Jeffrey’s Bay wasn’t really for us as we are not surfer dudes and really not into that whole scene and so we moved on to St Francis Bay.
As I said before what a contrast. It was pretty close, 20-30 minutes from Jeffrey’s Bay I think, but where Jeffrey’s Bay was a bit run down and busy with the youth of today, St Francis Bay was much more quiet, sophisticated and beautiful. All whitewashed buildings and houses, actually mansions might be a better word for it in some cases, with thatched roofs, beautiful it really was. It had what I can best describe as a canal system running through it with lots of people´s houses and properties right on the canal so that they had their own mooring and boats or kayaks. You could see the wealth and money all around you; this would be a fine place to live if you could afford it. In our case we could afford the free walk along the
beach and lunch at a local fish restaurant in town. Again the Hake, Calamari and chips were all excellent and pretty cheap too.
Though St Francis Bay was extremely pretty there seemed little to actually do and keep us entertained, so we decided to keep on going and head towards Storms River.
Storms River On route to Storms River, which was a hundred plus kilometers, we stopped at Tsitsikama Adventure Company and took in a zip line activity over the Kruis river. Very cool this, I was a little nervous when I got on the first zip line, but really there is nothing to it and I very much enjoyed the 50 minute detour. We also stopped at Storms River Bridge and looked into the canyon of the river, a long way down was what I thought and moved on. At some point around 5pm we finally arrived at Storms River national park and made our way to our hut for the night. Well it was beautiful, it wasn’t cheap at around 550 Rand or £50 but it was truly beautiful as was the setting of the ocean crashing on the shore line creating amazing spray. We
took in the view for some time, I was quite mesmerised, in the end darkness came and took the view from us, so we headed to the restaurant to have some dinner and then called it a night.
Up again bright and early, Tracy and I decided to take in the famous suspension bridge over Storms River Mouth. This was quite the suspension bridge, pretty long though it wasn’t that high above the river, 10 – 15 meters I’d say. We tried to go on a boat trip and take in the views but we just couldn’t get a time to suit so instead at around 11am we headed on. In hindsight we should have stayed another day and perhaps gone on a boat trip or taken in some walks but hindsight is a wonderful thing and we didn’t, instead we made our way ultimately to Knysna via Bloukrans bridge and Plettenberg Bay.
Bloukrans Bridge/Plettenberg Bay At some point we got to Bloukrans bridge, again a long bridge over a very deep canyon only on this occasion its home to, apparently, the world´s largest bungee jump. We stood and watched two or three other people jump off
Bloukrans Bridge
Too high for me to consider the bungee! and I think psyched myself out watching it as I didn’t do it but kind of now wish I had done so, oh well. Pretty impressive I have to say, I saw Billy Connolly do it on TV once and our friend John Gorst did it a couple of years ago, fine effort.
Anyway after near an hour of watching we pushed on to Plettenberg Bay. Well I thought the beach here was beautiful, far superior in my opinion to Jeffrey’s Bay and right up their with Camps Bay in Cape Town. On this particular day there was a Youth festival on the beach, when I say youth I mean 18 – 22 year olds. There must have been a good couple of hundred of them at least, all showing of their curves and drinking, quite the sight I have to say, the weather had even improved to warm sunshine which was helping the party atmosphere. Tracy and I did feel a little old, well at least I did, plus these days I am carrying a barrel more than a six pack so after grabbing a little lunch we decided not stay in Plettenberg Bay but to head on
Knysna.
Knysna Everyone we have spoken to about the Garden route before we started this drive talks about Knysna. Everyone says it’s the place to visit on route and stay for a few days so I was quite looking forward to seeing what all the fuss is about. Right enough Knysna is very pretty. It is a fishing town with plenty of fishing boats (obviously) and tour boats. It’s famous for the Knysna heads which is a small opening from the Indian Ocean creating a big cove on which the town is settled and generally very settled water too. It’s without doubt very picturesque and the boat trip we took that evening out on water did not dispel that opinion. The cruise gave beautiful views of the town and the heads themselves and was an extremely pleasant way to spend a couple of hours even if did start getting cold as we got closer to the heads and as the sun went down. We did also wander round the town which again was pretty nice but it is the dock area that makes it.
We stayed that night in Knysna at the Travellers Lodge which was right
behind another hostel called Featherbed. What I couldn’t understand is how quiet our hostel was in comparison. The hostel we stayed in was beautiful and we were the only ones there whilst next door did seem quite busy and I have to say not nearly as nice a place, still our gain I guess.
The following morning we decided not to stay in Knysna for another night, for whilst it is very pretty there didn’t seem all that much to do really unless you felt like taking on some walks which clearly in our lazy lethargic state we did not. So firstly we went to the top of the East Head as you could drive there and took in the views of the coast line, the heads themselves (or at least the western one) and Indian Ocean, all very pretty. We then grabbed breakfast at the East Head Café in Knysna, which gave us spectacular views of the opening of the heads and the lighthouse, the food wasn’t bad either and then at some point before 11am we finally hit the road again and headed for Oudtshoorn.
Oudtshoorn/Mossel Bay As the road trip continues it dawns on
me that time is running out and that I really must do as much as possible and though we weren’t originally going to head there we decided to go 200km or so out of our way through Oudtshoorn and then another 30km to the Cango caves. Have to say I am glad that Tracy and I did venture there, the caves were incredible. The size of some of them were enormous, bigger than football pitches, the colours on the walls were incredible and some of the stalagmites and stalactites were as impressive as the ones we saw in Japan some 13 months earlier, well worth the side trip. Whilst at Cango caves, Tracy and I also tried some new food, in this case ostrich burgers. Overall very lean but I didn’t really like the taste and texture and won’t be having it again. Still good to try new things.
So having tried a bit of ostrich we decided to visit an ostrich farm as well. Ostrich farms seem to be in quite an abundance in this part of South Africa, they were everywhere. We turned up at Highgate Ostrich farm just before 4pm and joined a couple of Germans
on the tour. We got to see how they incubated the eggs and grew them; we got to see the different types of feathers they have. We learnt that the black feathered birds are usually bigger and male whilst the greyer feathered birds are smaller and female. We also saw little baby ostriches and learnt that an adult ostrich can run very fast, faster than any human. I also discovered that the eggs are incredible strong and could easily withstand my 15+ stone bulk when I stood on one. The highlight though had to be watching Tracy ride an ostrich. She screamed a bit and didn’t look the most comfortable but none the less she did a great job running round the yard on one. The trip ended with three ostrich keepers having a short race on the ostriches for our benefit, very funny.
The whole detour to Oudtshoorn added a good two to three hours to our driving this day but it was well worth it and just after 6pm or so we pulled in to Mossel Bay Backpackers where we would spend the night.
We did little in Mossel Bay really, arriving so late we took
a quick walk to the beach front which looked pretty nice but that was about it, however we did eat at Delfinos right on the beach front and in my case had one of the best burgers I have ever had, extremely juicy and the cost of it was excellent.
The good food continued the following morning when we got up late for once and had an early lunch; you’ve guessed it, fish and chips. A restaurant right on the ocean front was offering an early bird special of 29 Rand for fish and chips with a drink. It was of excellent quality, can’t believe I paid the equivalent of £2.50 to eat fish and chips in a classy restaurant, a real bargain. We did take a look at the beach front once again only this time in day light. It looked very pretty but unless you were going to go shark cage diving from Morsel bay, which we decided not to again, I kind of regret this now, there seemed little to stick around for and so once again we moved onwards, this time to Swellendam.
Swellendam There was little actual reason for us to go
to Swellendam, it was more as a stopping point on our way to the De Hoop Nature Reserve the following day. Good job too really as we had bad traffic on route due to road works and it took us about 4 hours to get there. Still Swellendam was a pretty little town with quaint little shops and cafés, we decided to stop at one and had afternoon tea like good old traditional Brits. Some of the views of the mountains from here were amazing.
The backpackers, the only one in the town, that we stayed at was OK nothing to special but it did the job. We took an en-suite room, treating ourselves, while some of the other rooms were literally garden sheds converted into little cabins to give a quaint touch; some looked OK but some looked cheap if you ask me. They did have a roaring camp fire in the evening which was a very nice touch though.
As I said Swellendam was just a stop over really on the way to De Hoop, so once again we were up bright and early, grabbed a little breakfast at one of the cafés in the town
that used to be a former jail and then made our way to De Hoop which was only 60km away, I think. We were only 20 minutes into the drive when we turned on to a dirt road; this was clearly a sign of things to come, remembering of course we are in a very small car without any 4x4 abilities. Anyway, about one hour later and a wrong turning too, GPS wasn’t working so well out here, we arrived at a place called Malgas. Malgas looked all very pretty with the river running through it, however we had to cross this river and there was no bridge. After driving around a bit we arrived at; we found out later, the last man powered hand drawn pontoon in South Africa. Visions of the boat that collapsed in Zambia with our truck on it two weeks earlier were coming to mind. Anyway we did make it across safely in the end and about 40 minutes later of more dirt track road, some two hours in total since we left Swellendam, we arrived at the De Hoop Nature Reserve.
De Hoop Nature Reserve Once again we were in a coastal
park just like in Storms River. On the drive down to our circular hut accommodation called a ‘rondavel’ you could see for miles in all directions as it almost seemed like shrub land. Though I could see for miles I nearly drove over a couple of tortoises in the road on the route down, guess I need to focus a bit more on what is right in front of me rather than miles away from me. Our rondavel was magnificent, even better than the accommodation we had in Storms River in terms if size and beauty, the only down point was that on this occasion it wasn’t en suite, still can’t have everything. The view from the rondavel across the estuary river in front of us was beautiful and the amount of birds flying around would have kept any bird lover happy. We grabbed a little lunch and headed towards the sand dunes at Koppie Alleen Beach. These sand dunes were bright white and very big, we walked around a bit taking in the coast line and the crashing waves, the whole setting, the coast line and sand dunes, I thought was pretty breathtaking. Apparently you can often see whales
in these parts during migration times however that finished in mid November time so we were a month too late unfortunately and saw nothing of the sort.
We did however on our way down to Koppie Alleen and back again see some ostriches running around, some Bontebok antelope which are beautiful looking animals, Eland Antelope, which are very big antelopes and one Cape Mountain Zebra. Now I know we saw plenty of zebra in Botswana but Cape Mountain Zebra are very rare, slightly different colours than the normal zebra and a bit fatter, it was very pretty to see. We also saw a baboon enter someone else’s cool box whilst they were putting up a tent and run off with a lettuce, you don´t see that every day.
Dinner this night was at the only restaurant in the reserve, it was a set menu and very nice but pretty expensive I thought at 185 Rand each before tip, still needs must. The following morning we thought we might stay longer at De Hoop, as it was extremely beautiful, and we felt we had time on our side, however it was now Saturday December 11th and the school holidays
had started and this meant that all the accommodation in the park was gone, so disappointingly at around 11am we checked out. Before we left we did however have a drive around the estuary and took in the views of the birds including the pink flamingos, very relaxing and very pretty.
Cape Agulhas/Hermanus/Stanford Village So onwards and in this case downwards or I should southwards towards the most southerly point, in this case Cape Agulhas. Some three to four weeks earlier we had visited Cape Point which likes to claim itself as being the most southerly point of Africa, but in reality it is Cape Agulhas. This however is about all Cape Agulhas has going for it, that and its lighthouse, which to be fair is very big and pretty, so imagine our surprise when we went to check into the local backpackers to discover it was all booked up, I guess it was the weekend and school holidays. Instead as there was little to keep us, after having had the obligatory photo at the most southerly point, we decided to grab a little lunch in the town (fish and chips again) before heading off to Hermanus where
Crayfish
I think all of these were saved as they were too small! we checked into the Hermanus Backpackers in the early afternoon.
I was actually quite impressed with Hermanus, especially its seafront area with its numerous restaurants, bars, shops and general scenery. However it was damn cold and windy outside so we didn’t last long on our little wander round before heading into a local pub for a drink and to watch a little football. You could see from how fresh, clean and modern the whole sea dock area was that it had been cleaned up for the world cup some 6 months earlier, I guess we and the local area generally were the beneficiaries of it now.
We grabbed dinner a little later at one of the local steak restaurants and called it a night and headed back to our backpackers, which to be fair was excellent in that it was modern, fresh and very clean, however we were staying in the cottage building which just around the corner from the main building which didn’t look quite as nice.
The following day we took a look round the local fishing dock in Hermanus and watched some fisherman on the side of the dock catching Crayfish. I was impressed
to see that they were measuring them and if they didn’t meet the mark they were actually throwing them back. Good attitude this for future fishing. We then decided to head the 20km to Stanford village and to the local brewery for a little beer tasting. Now I know with all the wine around we should have probably done a little wine tasting, but for some reason I really fancied trying out the Birkenhead brewery. Unfortunately there were no tours this day which was disappointing, still we could do the beer tasting so not all was lost.
Having tried 6 half pints of different beers between us, which generally I thought were very good, we decided we best have a little food too. So we took a walk around the village, which was very pretty, looked in some of the shops and found a local pub serving Sunday lunch, so we made ourselves at home.
A very relaxing day was followed up by a quiet night in the cottage at the backpackers where we planed our final couple days.
Betty’s Bay/Cape town After a bit of breakfast at the cottage Tracy and I finally hit the
road and we made our way back to Cape Town. Now we all know Tracy loves her penguins and so it came as no surprise to me that she had found a place where many African penguins would come ashore. In this case Betty’s Bay, which is now a protected penguin colony. I was amazed at how many penguins we saw, if there was one there must have been a thousand at least and I think quite a lot more than that. Tracy was in her element, the only thing that could have made it better was if Tracy got to hold one, still we got plenty of photos and Tracy had a massive smile on her face. Back on the road to Cape Town we stopped first at the Harold Porter Botanical Gardens which were pretty nice. No end of different species of plants and flowers or as the South African’s like to call it, fynbos, we also grabbed some lunch here at the restaurant, all very nice.
That evening we pulled into northern Cape Town and met up with our hosts Iqbal and Thania. We’d seen Iqbal and Thania some three weeks earlier in Camps Bay but
it was good to see them again. We were lucky enough to stay at their house or I should say their mansion, it was massive, I lost count of the number of rooms in it, it has a fair size pool out the back and quite the view too, how the other half live. Very generously Iqbal and Thania also took us out for dinner, maybe they took pity on us poor backpackers but it was extremely nice to finish our time travelling in such a nice place and with such nice people.
Day 454 Our final day, very little was done today other than packing up and eating at the local shopping centre where I also got a hair cut and we just generally killed time. I can understand why people recommend the garden route as a trip to undertake in South Africa as there is quite a lot to do and much of the scenery along it is beautiful. At around 10pm we would be on a flight back to the UK, I can’t believe its all come to this, after 454 days on the road, on Tuesday December 14th, 2010, Tracy and I were finally
heading home. For the longest time I have been saying that I am quite tired of travelling, of living out of a rucksack and ready to stop. Whilst this is all true it was only in this last 10 days that it finally hit me that the travelling is coming to an end and with that realisation I find myself feeling quite sad.
It’s been an incredible trip, we visited five continents and 24 countries in the last 454 days; we met up with and stayed with friends in Dubai, Australia, Bermuda, America and South Africa during our travels. We did so many things and saw so many incredible sites that I can’t remember them all, let alone mention them all, good job we kept a blog then eh!! Unfortunately we had a few visits to a few hospitals on route but by in large it has been fantastic, a trip of a life time in which we have a lot of great happy memories to reminisce over.
So what now? Well part of the reason for travelling was for Tracy and me to consider where we may want to live and work going forward. Nowhere really stood
out as a clear winner but there were some clear favourites and after some discussion and deliberation we are going to try for Singapore, maybe New York, Bermuda again and Dubai possible, if it doesn’t work out then London it will be.
Anyway to those who we visited and stayed with, namely Richard, Laura and Layla in Dubai, Kat and Karl in Sydney, Nikola, Michelle, Tatjana and Mila also in Sydney, Tom and Alex in Brisbane, Archit and Maria in my favourite NYC and Iqbal and Thania in Cape Town I whole heartily thank you all. If at any time Tracy and I can repay the favour and you wish to come and stay with us, when we figure out where that is of course, then please don’t hesitate to get in touch, as the saying goes mi casa es su casa.
To those of you who stuck with us, if there are any, on this 15 month, 454 day journey by reading our blog, I hope we kept you well informed and entertained, thank you for comments and emails.
And with that, sadly, the 454 day road to nowhere and everywhere trip comes to an end.
Cheers
Patrick and Tracy
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D MJ Binkley
Dave and Merry Jo Binkley
I'm always sad
When I discover a blogger at the end of their trip. Looks like you had a marvelous time. I've enjoyed reading. Thanks for sharing.