The Garden Route finale (Like London buses there are no postcards for weeks then several will arrive at once) We arrived in Cape Town on 6 January after a memorable journey along the Garden Route. It has been a blur of beautiful and empty sandy beaches, rocky headlands, yellowwood forests and fynbos, stunning walks, marine wildlife, very wealthy holiday retreats like Knysna and Cape St Francis, illegal settlements made of wood and corrugated iron and ...

Knysna has been a difference experience to the rest of our trip. It is more like the Med or the Californian coast than Africa. We've seen major wealth alongside extreme poverty, the contrast more stark here as the wealth is more obvious than anywhere else we've been. We encountered the usual Xmas/New Year holiday issues, like how to get in anywhere for a drink and how to avoid listening to Auld Lang Syne. On the plus side we've body surfed in the ...

Knysna 29 December 2006Well, despite the odds we’ve survived the Christmas festivities intact after 10 days at Tsitsikamma National Park.It’s been a pleasure to sit looking out over the southern ocean soaking up the wild raw beauty of the place whilst little Johnny hurtles past on his new skateboard/bike/rollerskates (delete as appropriate), or drives his radio controlled car in to my bruised toe (I slipped whilst attempting to dive off the swimming p...

Christmas Greetings or Ralphie’s Rants 2 I’m afraid I can’t pass the opportunity to have a rant about Christmas; it’s too tempting to ignore! A friend who will remain nameless emailed a great Christmas card the other day that said “Happy whatever event it is, now f*ck off and leave me alone for the next 12 months” Much as I share these sentiments I am aware that some of our readers may actually enjoy Christmas. What...

Had a great 5 days in Addo Elephant Park, which was full of ....elephants. Now down on the coast at Oyster Bay, west of Port Elizabeth on the Eastern Cape. In the true tradition of the British on holiday we walked the local beach (beautiful white sand, huge sand dunes, dolphins surfing) in the rain.Thought we'd got away from Christmas but no, our fellow campers have Xmas lights all over their tents and caravans, and most have bought lovely white plastic xmas ...