Our journey to Southern Africa - part 2:
By Marius Westgard Erichsen
South Africa:
Garden Route
Thursday December 11.
Thursday 11. of December we left Cape Town (Knut and Morfar had left the day before) with a rented car, and set out on Garden Route. Garden Route is the coast line to the Indian ocean in the Cape provinces. It is a very fertile area, because of the winter rain in the Cape provinces, and many people take holidays there because it is sunny in the summer and the Indian ocean is warm. We drove to Oudshoorn, which is inland in a drier area called Little Caroo. Oudshoorn is renowned for its ostriches. There we stayed at a nice backpackers hostal.
Friday December 12.
We spent most of this day in Oudshoorn. First we bought an ostrich egg and made scrambled egg of it, this we ate about ¼ of for breakfast. It tasted very good, richer than a "normal egg". Then we went to the Cango caves, some natural caves just outside Oudshoorn, and had a guided tour there. The natives once lived there, and at the start of the tour they had made a small exhibition with that. It is fantastic what nature can create, all those strange shapes, one place there was a stone that sounded like a drum when you knocked on it. After that we went to Cango Ostrich Farm where we learned a lot about the ostriches, for example that an ostrich egg can carry the weight of an adult on it without breaking. I also got to ride on an ostrich, it was very funny. The ostrich is just the most stupid animal in the whole world. We went back to the backpackers hostal and packed our things and ate some more of the ostrich egg (we had to leave half of it there because we just couldn't eat all of it it), Then we drove to Stromboli's Inn between Knysna and Plettenburg Bay. We made a minor stop in Knysna, which looked very interesting. Mum was eager to see more of this place.
Saturday December 13.
At the start of the day we went back to Knysna to have a guided trip in the Featherbed Nature Reserve. Knysna lies in the end of a lagoon and the featherbed lies just over on the other shore. The Featherbed is a beautiful reserve, we were lucky that we came to the boat in time. We had some trouble finding it, and mom had some troubles driving on the left side of the road. When we came to the reserve we drove up to the top of the hill. On our way up we met three turtles which the guides had to carry out of the way. From the top we walked down and watched the nature. At the bottom we ate a nice lunch at a beautiful outdoor tree covered restaurant. After we finished eating we took the boat back, this time we were taken out between "the heads", which is the way from the lagoon and out to sea. That day we also went to Plettenburg bay, unfortunately we used to much time trying to find somewhere to sleep (in Jeffrey's bay), so by the time we thought to go for a swim, it had started raining and the water was ice cold, so we did not swim much. In the evening we went to Jeffrey's bay, we had some trouble finding somewhere to live (and mom had some trouble with driving on the left side of the road, and looking for a place to live at the same time), but an owner of a pizza restaurant helped us, and guided us to a guesthouse some kilometers away from the center. It was at a German widow, who made her livings this way. Beautiful view of the ocean.
Sunday December 14.
Early in the morning we started driving towards Port Elizabeth. When we came the airport and delivered the car we found out that had we delivered it one minute later, we would have had had to pay for another day. We then caught the plane to Gaborone.
To next part: Gaborone- Maun
Go to previous part: Cape Town
To introduction page
MWE 04.12.98