What happened along the Garden Route...

So we left Simon’s Town and headed east aiming to stop at Hermanus.  This place is known for regular close up spottings of whales up until the end of November when the female whales coming into shore to give birth.  It was a great sea road drive to the place and by midday we arrived and checked in to our hostel.  We grabbed some lunch in the sun and then went on a scenic drive taking in the bay views from up on the cliff paths…  We then joined many other people by sea to look for whales.  This was a nice little town that’s known as a haven for many Capetonians to head to at the weekends as it’s not that far away. 

Early evening we did a great run along the coastal path in the sunshine…  At the hostel we met some SA people there for the weekend.  They had the jacuzzi going and the beers flowing.  We helped them cheer on the SA rugby team on the TV playing France, only for SA to lose!

We were up early the next day for the long drive to Wilderness.  But first we drove past Hermanus bay to see if we could see any whales, only to see one really close to the beach, no more than a stones throw away…  We then drove down some very long straight roads and after a few hours we got to Mossel Bay, the first town on the Garden Route, and had some lunch sat on the beach.  It was a lovely warm day and being a Sunday the locals were all there having their braai’s (BBQ in English).

Wilderness was probably only 50kms on so we made it all in good time and checked into our hostel then went straight out to take in one of the local walking trails up and along side the river which was lovely in the late afternoon sun.  As the name suggests, this town is known for great hikes and walks in great countryside.  We got back after a couple of hours for a well deserved shower and food…

The next day we were in the car again but not so long a drive this time to Plettenberg Bay known for its great beaches and surfing.  We’d phoned ahead and made a reservation at this hostel, and the owner said ‘it might be a bit noisy’ in the hostel and the town due to the local youngsters just finishing school.  This is a popular town for them to head to apparently to relax and unwind in the sun after all that studying. 

We pulled into the hostel (which was a very big house with a lawn out front) to see what looked like a pop festival site.  There were people with tents, campervans, people drinking and BBQ’s going in the sunshine.  We met the owner who couldn’t apologise for them all enough and said it was the first and last time he would do this when they all break for hols again.  He much preferred the foreigners especially after a bit of trouble he’d had with them over the weekend. 

Nice place though, good room so with our things in from the car we drove down to the main beach and vegged out.  This was probably where all the students were hanging out as well, as the local beach bar was pumping out some good tunes and doing its best to get them all drinking!  After some good rays we went back and went for a run checking out the hill top views before a good feed and watching the madness of the students in action…

After quite a sleepless night (riots in the house when they all came back from partying!) we headed off the next day to a different beach we had seen from doing the run.  A huge long stretch of sand with only a few people making the most of it.  We came back later that day to the madness of the house goings on and at one point hearing so many of them phoning up their parents all asking for extra money and saying how expensive it was for them to be partying all the time.  Spoilt little white kids!  No surprise but another noisy night sleep was had!

We woke up to rain the next day for our drive to J’bay.  The hostel we booked here had a great location on the beach with ocean views from the room.  Shame though that it was all behind a high fence that also had an electric fence on top of that.  As it was still raining we hit the shops for more food and a visit to the factory outlets in the town.

After some well earned catch up of sleep we woke to great sunshine so after a morning run on the beach and some more planning etc for future things we caught some rays on the grass our side of the fence, as we were told it wasn’t safe to lay out on the beach in front of us!  Such a shame.

J’bay was as far long as we were going in the car and pretty much the end of the ‘Garden Route’ so we headed back for a stop at a hostel in Buffels Bay near Knysna.  Knysna is a well marketed place like an activity hub with many things to do and also not far away from the ‘Highest Bungee’ jump in the world at 216M…  We wanted to stay at Buffels Bay as it was near the sea and the hostel called Wildside was pretty much as close to the sea as you could get.  It felt like a desert island with nothing really else around.

We turned up to hear it was their 3^rd birthday party that night and saw a big sheep being spit roasted on the braai.  We wanted to do some biking here as we had heard the trails were good so we dumped our bags and headed back into town to sort out some bikes for the next day.  Back to the party and the owner announced about 5pm the party rules.  Free beer, bar snacks, dinner (being the sheep), spliffs…  Well it rocked so what a night to turn up.  People had come from miles around dressed in fancy dress with the theme of toy characters.  So loads of people dressed up.  The poor sheep even tasted great and everyone really enjoyed themselves…  Great night!

Because we had booked the bikes the next day we had to get up early to hit the trails which was well before most had surfaced I’m sure.  We had packed the bikes in the poor Corsa and made our way to the start of the Harkerville trail.  It was known for being a tough bike trail taking a few hours but it took you out on the cliff edge for some great well deserved coastal views.  Excellent ride with some really cool single track through the forest.

We headed through Knysna to buy some souvenirs then back to the hostel for a well deserved shower and to hear the party stories.  As expected it was all very quiet in the hostel from people still feeling rough.  This hostel sure knew how to look after people and did great cheap dinners every night to keep people there so we had one that night as well as most of the others.  We met a great couple Den and Heather while there who were from NZ but had been working in the UK in Devon so we were all on the cider that night to bring back the taste of the Scrumpy they were missing!!!

Next day we headed off for a very long drive back Hermanus and stayed at the same place as last time.  The hostel was really nice and had a real homely feel so we decided to go back again.  We were back here mainly for a stop over before dropping the car back to Cape Town the next day.  So we were up early for our mad day ahead, as we needed to get to Stellenbosch first to drop off our luggage.  We loved Stellenbosch as an area after visiting it doing the wine tours, so we managed to get a place for all the time we had left in SA so we didn’t have to move about. 

We made Stellenbosch in good time so first stop to drop off our bags then into Cape Town.  With that all done we got the car hire people to drop us off at the V&A Waterfront to mooch about.  We even tried one of SA’s famous Steers burgers.  All very fat boy, but very tasty!  We then made our way back to the train station to catch a train to Stellenbosch.  We had to wait 1.5 hours for the next train so we hit the town nearby around the stalls… 

We had heard allsorts about the trains not being safe even for locals never mind tourists, so that’s why we dropped off our luggage first so when we got on we were on our guard.  There is lots of security on the platforms all the way up the stations on the way, so the journey wasn’t too bad but we were glad we got to Stellenbosch with no hassles.  With an hour or so on the train and a quick walk through the town we got to our hostel.  More on that back in the Cape Town link!