The Garden Route

So this is the Wicked Camper Van we hired, its called Jungle Drums. The plan was to spend 10 days driving the Garden Route (a famous coastal drive in South Africa) before turning inwards into the Drakensberg Mountains and then onto Johannesburg and the airport home.
We drove from Cape Town, via the Cape of Good Hope along the stunning cliff top drive along to Pringle Bay, home to friends of Geoff who had kindly insisted on putting us up and feeding us lots of food. Pringle Bay is a tiny bay with a pristine beach and very few people. From the home of Dawn and Anneka I could see a couple of whales in the bay spouting water through their blow holes. As well as feeding us, they also let us luxuriate in huge showers and even did all our laundry, which after 4 months and only two hot washes on route, was not the nicest of tasks. We could have stayed for weeks but time was pressing alas. The plan was to drive around to Hermanus, which was close by, and do a shark cage dive. This is where you are place in a metal cage and lowered into the water between a lot of Great White Sharks (those from Jaws fame) Unfortunately the company contacted us on the morning we were due to go to say that due to very rough seas all cage diving had been postponed for a week. We later found out that other truck friends who were a couple of days ahead of us, had managed to go out, but they had been constantly vomiting due to the rough seas and most had been unable to get into the water through illness. So for us the cage diving was off.
Instead we turned inland slightly and drove through the winelands. Guess why the region is called the winelands. We stopped off at a couple of wineries and found to our surprise that the wine tastings were free. It’s fair to say we made the most of this opportunity. Luckily Denis was onboard and Denis does not drink so was very happy to drive. Denis is a non-drinking Irishman – have you ever heard of such a thing. He’s a rally driver back home in his spare time so when he offered to do all the driving the following day and spend the full day wine tasting – who were we to argue. The wine here was even cheaper than Stellenbosch and we picked up some gorgeous chenin blancs for just 1.50 pounds per bottle. We visited the world champion brandy maker and some highly acclaimed port producers. If we thought little Wicked was overloaded before, now there was another 15 bottles of wine, bottles of sherry and brandy not to mention 2 pink ports, 2 ruby ports and a tawny port. The worrying thing is, that the vast majority of this alcohol was consumed well before the end of the trip!
From Route 62 winelands tour we made our way to the town of Oudtshoorn. I struggled with the pronunciation of this for days! This town became rich due to Ostrich farming and the production of ostrich

feathers at the turn of the last century. There are still a lot of ostrich farms in the area and we went to visit one. I learnt all about ostrich farming and that you can stand on an ostrich egg without it breaking. The egg can hold 180kg and is the equivalent of 24 chicken eggs if you are scrambling it. The highlight of the trip though had to be the ostrich riding. Only 4 people from the group tour could have a go and I was picked to be one of them. It was hysterical. I had to climb onto a fence so I could position myself on the rump of the bird – not the centre of its back. I had to grip each wing tightly (easier said then done) then the handler set it off. We went flying off around the arena. The handler ran behind to catch you should you all off. I made it all the way around before my less than graceful decent. It was so much fun, I could not stop laughing for ages. I was even given a certificate.
To the north of the town we visited the Cango Caves. These caves are filled with millennia old stalagmites and stalactites. Stalactites hang down and are hollow whilst stalagmites grow upwards and are solid. The formations within these caves were beautiful. The caves were warm inside which surprised me; other caves I have visited such as those in Slovenia are freezing inside.
We spent a day at the resort of Knysna where I gorged on more oysters. The seafood in South Africa is amazing. In the famous surfing resort of Jeffries Bay I ate calamari, scallops and crayfish. I did not try to surf though; standing up in the water there was difficult enough with the strength of their currents. We spent a couple of days at Storms River where Denis did the worlds biggest bungee jump. I went Zip lining which was a lot tamer but amazing fun. I flew across waterfalls and gorges on wires ranging from 90m to 210m long. In the mountain resort of Hogsback I climbed up waterfalls and admired the scenery.
We were able to spend a night camping within the Addo National Park and spent the day doing game drives around the park. On our afternoon drive we saw a herd of roughly 25 elephants but it was on our 6am morning game drive when we were very fortunate in what we saw. A lion must have made a kill during the night and had left its unwanted meat. Hyenas had found the remains of this kill and we saw a group of 5 hyenas eating the remains of a baby Kudu. It is rare to see hyenas like this and I felt incredibly lucky. There were also a couple of cheeky jackals who kept trying to steal pieces of meant from under the hyena’s noses. Eventually they did succeed. We were all on cloud nine after witnessing this but the day kept getting better. We came across elephants grazing at the side of the road. One elephant turned around and looked straight at us. He then started walking towards us. The air in our camper van became very tense! The elephant stood next to the van, looked into the windows and then walked on. We were less than 30cm away from an elephant! A collective sigh of relief was let out when he walked away – he was simply being nosey. The morning ended with us finding three very full lions sunbathing, these were probably the lions who had killed the kudu. As game drives go – it was extraordinary.
We have now moved inland into the Drakensberg Mountains. Getting here we encountered a lightning storm, followed by a hailstorm which I though was going to break the car windscreen. This was topped with the heaviest rain I have ever witnessed. Visibility went to nothing. We could not see the road in front of us, let alone any markings on the road. As we were on the side of a mountain with sheer drops at one side, it was not the most comfortable driving conditions. Luckily the worse of the weather passed quickly, leaving us driving in just plain nasty heavy rain.
From the Drakensberg Mountains I am planning to do a little hiking (weather permitting) and also pop across the border into Lesotho. This will be my 15th country of this journey.