November
6 - November 9, 2001
After talking
with Brenda and Anton, they had suggested that we take 3 nights
instead of 2 along the garden route so we began our journey
on Tuesday with a completely revised plan. I'm glad we did though
as it turned out that some of the more stunning scenery we would
of missed. We still only had time to drive really and it would
have been nice to take some time to do some of the walks in
the area. We were going to stay in Victoria Bay for the first
night. All the guesthouses are right on the beachfront, no road
between them and the sea. It was quite nice but unfortunately
no room at the inn for us so we carried on to Knysna. Knysna
is set on a lagoon and is quite lovely. We stayed at the St
James, and had our own little house/cabin (it was to nice to
call a cabin), that was just a room and a bathroom. The restaurant
there looked over the lagoon so our dinner scenery was beautiful,
including a sunset and then the town lights. The next day we
took a boat trip out to the heads of the lagoon. It was very
narrow and rough quite a dramatic change. We also saw a dolphin.
We left
Knysna after lunch and with me driving and Gavin sleeping we
passed through some of the most stunning scenery I have ever
seen. It was a real mixed bag, including the dry finbos mountain
garden, rich green forest glades, and impossible valleys that
went down for miles while we simply crossed a bridge. As there
were no other cars about I took my time and had a good look
at the scenery. Luckily for Gavin we would return this way the
next day. We passed through a toll booth to continue to Tsitsikamma
National park. And it was there I discovered the petrol light
had come on. I hadn't seen a petrol station for miles and we
still had about 50km to go. After a while we saw a sign post
off to the right to a town called Storms River mouth. They should
have petrol right? Wrong, what sort of a place calls itself
a town when it doesn't have petrol. Luckily for us the told
us we only had to travel for another 10 km to the next and most
scenic petrol station in South Africa. It was right by another
of these amazing ravines, Storms River. It was like someone
had taken a hot knife and sliced the rock as you would butter,
there was such a small gap between the rock faces yet it was
so far down. As it was raining we didn't get out to look over
the edge but carried on to the Tsitsikamma lodge. We stayed
there for the night in our own log cabin built on stilts. It
also had a loft with 2 single beds and a spa bath. The view
was of forest and mountains. It was so peaceful and beautiful.
Outside our window was a large tree with little birds nests
that hung down in a light bulb shape. One was in the process
of construction and it was very rewarding to watch the bird
make it. During the night there was a huge storm and I was expecting
to see all the nests on the ground, but they were fine. It was
still drizzling though so we couldn't go for the recommended
hike. We made our way back along the toll highway and stopped
to walk over the Storms river bridge. Words really can't describe
and the photos don't do it justice either.
We continued
on and decided to head to the Cango Caves. These are similar
to Waitomo caves, but better in my opinion. There were 6 large
caverns all with different yet equally as stunning cave formations
in them. They had been lit with white light to appear more natural
and it was a good ploy. We could of gone on at the end of our
1 hour tour but with cavern names like the post box I decided
that 1 hour of beauty was a enough. The drive there was equally
as stunning through three mountain passes. It was a shame that
it was raining and foggy, but we still got a few glimpses of
the fantastic mountain views.
We drove
back to George and stayed at a lovely guest house out of the
city. We dined in one of the top 100 listed restaurants of South
Africa and it was very good. On our drive back to Somerset West
we really got a sense of how vast South Africa is. Many of the
crop fields were mown in an interesting way to create some variation
in the normally unchanging landscape. We crossed Sir Lowry's
pass which has a lot of rocks protruding from the ground at
unusal angles, like a meteor exploded and shattered into jagged
pieces.
Sticking
out rocks
Click to
enlarge
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