The LONG Way Around the World: South Africa, The Garden Route

We've just returned from a four night road trip along the Garden Route, the southern coastline of South Africa. This was not on our original itinerary, but a little cabin fever, and ample time was on our hands, so we figured, why not. What a great decision. There will be plenty of detail to follow, but this shall sum up our findings.

Our road trip, about the same distance as driving from the bay area to Disneyland and back, traversed in one direction along Route 62 (their equivalent of Route 66) through the Karoo (a high mountain region), and back along Route 2 (much like Highway 101), a more coastal journey. We did our best to experience as much as we could in our brief five days, but this area could easily consume five weeks to truly do it justice. It is every bit as fantastic as the California coastline, and in many respects, is so much more.

Day 1 - Hout Bay to Oudtshoorn
Before we set off on our journey, our gracious host, Sam, sat down with us to help plot our journey. He gave us all the inside skinny on places to stop and to avoid. First stop, Nuy on the Hill, a winery perched on a knoll in a vast high plain cradled by a towering mountain range. To get there Sam says, "You'll get to a tunnel, alright?" We nod. He says, "Don't go through it, alright?" Why, we inquire. "It's not very pretty. Better to go over the top." (Note, both Nicole and I had flashbacks of Finding Nemo, when the school of fish tells Dory to swim through the trench, not over it.) Regrettably, due to a lack of concentration, we blew past the off-ramp, and plunged through the tunnel. He was right, it was not very pretty. Fortunately, this was our only transgression.

Nice to be able to leave some of our gear behind and travel a little lighter than normal.

The tunnel goes through this mountain range. Would have been more exciting to go over it.

Panorama of the high mountains with vineyards as far as the eye can see.

We awoke at 6am to embark on our journey, with Nuy on the Hill being a breakfast stop. The scenery was lost on the boys.

Tried some local fare. Biltong, their version of Beef Jerky that is EVERYWHERE, and Roosterkoek, a doughy roll ready for any manner of spread prepared on the braai (BBQ).

With bellies full, we pressed on through the Karoo and over a mountain pass, to the town of Barrydale. We stopped for a breather just passed the Old English Fort to stretch our legs and explore the town of Montague.

Some ne'er-do-well made my kids laugh. Admittedly, me too. I'm a sucker for a good fart joke.

Our lunch stop, Diesel & Cream. It was as American as apple pie with all manner of random junk and roadside memorabilia.

The food and service was meh, but the milkshakes were decadent. So thick that the straws imploded when you tried to suck up the yummy.

Ronnie's SEX Shop (the "Sex" was graffiti, but ended up increasing traffic, so it was never removed). By my extremely brief assessment, this bar is where lonely people go to avoid life, (including the bartender). Yes, those are lady undergarments draped over his head.

From Barrydale we continued along Route 62 through rolling plains flanked by mountain ranges on either side. Whereas the Table Mountains are made from stacked layers of rock in a perfectly horizontal manner, the mountains of the Karoo are the remains of millions of years of tectonic pressure pushing on the landscape as if it were nothing but a blanket. The folds create an undulating and swirling mess of layers going this way and that. The Monet-esque landscape of the Cape area now incorporates a Van Gogh-esque stroke.

I could stare at these anthropomorphic mountains for hours waiting for Rockbiters or Thing to appear.

Every now and then, you just had to pull over and capture the moment. Fortunately, other cars are about as frequent as Zane turning down Ice Cream.

A word about the roadways... They were wonderful. Perfectly smooth, wide shoulders, good signage, banked turns, and common sense lines. Basically the polar opposite of Ireland and the UK.

Sometimes pictures just don't capture the scale of things. This was breathtaking and would have been gobbled up by a US National Park boundary in the states - just another mountain pass here.

Day 2 - Oudtshoorn (then to Knysna)
Oudtshoorn is a compulsory stop on any Garden Route trip to take in the "Only-in-Africa" experiences of Ostrich riding, Cheetah petting, and Crocodile swimming. We opted for the Ostrich riding, Elephant feeding, and Cave exploring.

Highgate Ostrich Show Farm
The ostrich industry is fairly strong in South Africa. The birds are bred for feathers, pelts, and meat. Much to my surprise, it's a red meat and quite delicious. The eggs are also carved and painted for all manner of decoration.

Ostrich eggs are basically made of rock and can support 150kg each. We found out that Ostrich eat rocks to help grind up their food. They have no teeth you see.

Fascinatingly dumb creatures. Each eyeball is 5x bigger than their brains.

Should we feel bad riding these birds? We suspended our animal activist instincts and took a couple for a spin. It's impossible not to laugh when you are holding on for dear life to a bird that you cannot control.

All around surprisingly fun couple of hours

Buffelsdrift Elephant Feeding Experience

Spent a half hour feeding three adolescent Elephants at Buffelsdrift Lodge.

Bryce refused to be hugged by the three elephants. He happened to be on my back when it was my turn. This is also when I found out that an elephant sneeze is messy (and the smell lingers until you shower...)

Cango Caves

The caves are reasonably like those we have in California and Oregon with an African twist.... precautions be damned.

The main chamber was massive and had incredible stalactites and mites.

We opted for the "Adventure Tour", which added in the element of squeezing through openings best suited for seven year olds. Note the lack of protective wear. But here's the thing, the lack of headgear made me keenly aware of my surroundings. I'm certain I would have knocked my head seven times if I was wearing protection. (Like comparing the injury rate of Rugby players to NFL players....those helmets give license to turn people in to human torpedoes)

A seven year old squirming his way up a hole called "Devil's Chimney"

Nicole belly sliding down a crack, with a seven year old comfortably waiting his turn.

Montague Pass
Avoiding our previous indiscretion, we were keen to heed Sam's next advice to take the old pass from Oudtshoorn to Knysna (pronounced Nize-na), called Montague Pass. We were skeptical at first when the tarmac (it's what Endeni called it) road turned to gravel and began it's descent along a narrow pitch protected by a 1 foot thick rock wall. We were not to be disappointed. Instead of exposed swirling amber and rust colored rock cliffs, the gorge we descended was blanketed in lush green and peppered with yellow tufts of bushes. A recent rainfall saturated the hills and fed a waterfall deep within the crack of two opposing hillsides.

Day 3 - Knysna
Our original plan on Day 3 was to go on an Ocean Safari, but alas the weather got the better of us. We opted to stay on "dry" land and explore the village and surrounding areas.

A little wet and stormy heading to breakfast

This sign was outside the window of our breakfast spot

We opted for a short walk on a boardwalk through the "Garden of Eden", promoted on various websites as Not-to-be-missed! Frankly, we probably could have missed this little adventure. But hey, we had some time to kill.

Another Not-to-be-missed spot was Knysna Heads. This time, they were right. Knysna Heads is where the Indian Ocean (which, btw, is still strange to say, especially when you are facing south) spills in through a small cliffed opening into a calm inner lagoon. We started out at the overlook, which was splendid, but really had a good time at the base of the cliff - a place people don't seem to frequent.

Heights are not for them

Autumn is in this pic

It's quite a plunge from this point.

We stopped for lunch at a lovely restaurant and Bryce ordered the Gourmet Cheese plate. The waitress was impressed. If only she knew that he was hoping for a chunk of cheddar and some Ritz crackers.

Sort of randomly placed bridge to nowhere.

Bryce resorted to crawling over this

From my perspective

From Autumn's perspective

Strike a pose

Again, the rocks never cease to amaze me.

I ventured back for some sundowner time.

Day Four - Plettenburg Bay to Gaansbai
Since we had come all that way to go on an Ocean Safari to see whales up close, we were determined to do so. Fortunately, the sun was shining, the winds were calm, and there was an opening on the boat. We knew this meant an extra long day in the car, but we bit the bullet.

Here's how it goes... You board the boat like this. A tractor hitches up to the back and floors it towards the ocean. When it gets close to the ocean, the tractor slams on it's brakes. And, kersplash, we're off! It's like Maverick said, "I'm gonna hit the brakes, he'll fly right by." - "You're gonna what?!"

Plettenburg Bay is known for their sea lions which draws in the great whites. The cliffs were teeming with sea lions.

Humpbacks

Dolphins

What we discovered on our Ocean Safari - Besides the occasional wildlife, we found out that four out of five of us are not sea faring people. Nicole and Zane added chum to the waters, Bryce was nearly there too, and Autumn was more or less a zombie from the Dramamine. I felt great, but was frustrated with taking pictures, on a perpetual motion machine, of creatures that you couldn't see until they jumped out of the water. All in all, I'd say that was the last sea based whale watching experience of our collective lives.

If launching the Fat Boy seemed odd, so too was bringing the ship back in. The captain said, "Please sit and hold on to the seat in front of you. We're going to floor it towards the beach. When we hit, you might lunge forward. Here we go!" It was surprisingly smooth.

Route 2 & the Southern Most Tip of Africa
Upon disembarking from the boat and gathering our senses, we embarked on a six hour road trip back the way we came, this time on Route 2. While our trip east was a mostly vegetation-free experience, the return trip was largely agricultural with pockets of ocean front towns reminiscent of Southern California. Our drive brought back memories of the British countryside without the rock walls, and with more subtle hills - as though someone grabbed the mountains on either side of the valley and stretched them apart. I was also struck by the similarity to California highway 395 along the eastern flank of the Sierra Nevada's. Our midpoint was Cape Agulhas, the southern most point of the African Continent (which is not Cape of Good Hope).

The wind and rain have not been kind to this sign.

GPS functions perfectly

Most southerly parking spot in Africa

We were particularly enamored with the Afrikan's version of "You are now..."

Day Five - Gansbaai back home (via Franschhoek)
We had originally planned a stop in Gansbaai so that I could go shark cage diving. After reading some spotty reviews about visibility being compromised, and most people chumming the waters, I opted out. Wasn't on my bucket list, so no worries there. This freed up time for a serendipitous breakfast with whale watching while we sipped cappuccinos. Nicole found a quaint waterfront-home-turned-cafe overlooking whale engorged waters.

A cappuccino, some whale baleen, and whale ear bone please.

There are worse places to drink coffee. There are actually 3 whales in this photo!

The restaurant is literally the front porch of this ladies house. Her real house.

There were at least a dozen Southern Right Whales within 50 yards of the shoreline. The mama and baby whales were a joy to watch. Mama would lay on her back, fins in the air, while baby tried to sneak over the top.

Yep, more awesome rocks.

The waitress said there were caves along the shore. While can't be sure we found them, we did find this cool cave-like area.

Question... Is this what Bryce will look like later in life?

The Drive Home via Franschhoek
We had originally planned to spend most of the day trying to spot whales from the town of Hermanus just up the coast (apparently it's the whale watching capital of South Africa). Since we had more than adequately ticked that off our list, we called an audible and headed back in to the mountains to visit the wine town of Franschhoek. This region is clearly the breadbox of South Africa with miles upon kilometers of multicolored fields of produce and grains. The road from the coast gradually gains elevation until the last section where it climbs over another spectacular mountain pass. From here it drops down in to wine country. I can understand why most people that visit Cape Town say to bypass Stellenbosch and head here.

Slow rollers of fields contoured to the landscape

I may kick up the saturation on this pic and hang it on a wall somewhere.

View down to Franschhoek from the mountain pass

I have this theory about why grape vines are so picturesque. The perfectly linear configuration of the vines contrasts with the underlying landscape, accentuating the curves and undulations. Add this to the fact that grapes thrive against the backdrop of mountain ranges and you can't help but pause and let your eyes bounce around the scene.

Apparently Francshhoek has no patience for funny old timey car horns.

The Garden Route - A summary
If you're planning a trip to South Africa (and I highly recommend you do for reasons I will elaborate in a future post), the Garden Route must be on the itinerary.

Silvermine to Noordhoek Peak Hike
Almost forgot... Prior to our Garden Route road trip, we went for a wonderful hike around the lesser known Silvermine area of Table Mountain National Park. This is the mountain we stare at every morning as we sip coffee and plan our day.

We briefly mentioned in the previous post, but Cape Town had a bit of a scare last week with an out of control wildfire. This was a shot of the ridge above our house one evening. Fortunately, cooler weather came in during our road trip and snuffed it out.