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We headed out of Cape Town early the next day. We had a lot of travelling ahead of us with a drive down to Cape Point and the Cape of Good Hope through Simonstown and then a long drive around the coast towards Mossel Bay for our first stop of the so called 'Garden Route'. We decided to head straight down to Cape Point and lucky that we did. We didn't realise that it was actually a national park with lots of different animals and we didn't realise how much driving would actually be involved! Cape Point itself was very beautiful. We went up to a viewing point in a small train (it was like the size of a cable car but fixed to the ground) and the views of the coastline from the top are amazing. Not as high as Table Mountain but almost as stunning. From there we headed back to the car and headed to the Cape of Good Hope to marvel at the beautiful coastline and get the obligatory photo with the Cape of Good Hope sign! A drive around the National Park was the next up and we found ourselves seeing some of South Africa's animals for the first time since we got over to the 'rainbow nation' - the most notable being ostriches. I wasn't expecting to see ostriches down here so that was a bonus. On our way out of the national park we got a bit of a shock as it was early afternoon and a massive group of baboons came on to the road to sunbake and climb on the signs. Amazing.
After slowly negotiating through the mass of baboons we headed to Simonstown, a really nice town on the coast to check out the Penguin viewing - these were African penguins also known as the 'Jackass' penguins on account of the noise they sometimes make when in big groups. The penguins were obviously being looked after a little but were free to roam around as much as they wanted. We even saw one waddling around the roadside.
After seeing the penguins we stopped off for an excellent seafood platter at the nearby restaurant and then made our way towards Mossel Bay a lot later than expected! It was to be a long drive and we intended not to take any risks driving in the dark in South Africa, on account of all the car-jackings we'd heard about, but this idea went out of the window on the first day of the road-trip!
We arrived into Mossel Bay in the dark and finally found the hostel after a bit of driving around. It was a bit scary arriving at a new place in the dark. We didn't know the area and we didn't want to take a wrong turn down into one of the poorer township areas. Our hostel in Mossel Bay was closed when we got there - it was only around 8pm but everything was closed up. By chance a group of lads rocked up at the same time as us and had a mobile number for the owners which was lucky. I had booked a private room as there was not other option at the time. There was no heating and as it turned out no hot water either in the morning but at least the room was ok, if very cold! It was just somewhere to sleep for the night as we were leaving early in the morning. We dumped our stuff and headed for the Irish pub down the road to watch the Brazil V Ivory Coast match (I swear there is always an Irish pub in every town in the world!) and it was full of England fans on their way to Port Elizabeth just like us. The beer here is cheap - usually you have a choice of Carling Black Label or Castle. A bottle ranges from 12 rand to 14 rand usually. That's about just over a quid for a bottle.Yes please! After seeing the Brazilians thrash the Ivory Coast we headed back to the hostel and grabbed some kip ready for another big day tomorrow.
Another early start the following day - we dunked our heads in the basin and had a quick wash with boiled kettle water and then made our way out of the hostel! By chance, we bumped into a guy we were sitting next to at the England V Algeria match, who was staying at the hostel as well. Crazy that out of 60,000 fans we bump into someone we sat next to at the match! He was headed for Storms River for the bungee jump (the highest in the world).This wasn't on our agenda though! Not sure you'd get me doing a bungee! We decided to take a look around Mossel Bay before driving inland to see the Cango Caves.Mossel Bay was a really beautiful town, picturesque some would say.
We decided to hatch a plan involving going to the Cango Caves and then driving back towards the coast to George, where we were to stay for the night. We didn't know what to expect along the way and quickly found out that we were driving through the Swartberg mountains. It was absolutely beautiful with breathtaking views, however a little scary at times with the huge drop. The roads all had tarmac so we were perfectly safe. Along the way we started to see ostriches on the side of the road. Not just a few but hundreds of them. It was crazy. I had never seen an ostrich before and now I was seeing them everywhere - like cows or sheep back home! It turned out that there were lots of ostrich farms in the area and that one of the main industries of the area involved killing ostriches for their feathers. In fact, when we got towards the main town of Oudtshoorn it was all about ostriches. People at the side of the road selling coloured ostrich feathers, restaurants claiming to have the best Ostrich steak in town, Ostrich farms, Ostrich show farms, Ostrich riding. It was all about the Ostrich!
We went through the main town and headed towards the Cango Caves, another 30 kms out of town. We had a guided tour of the caves which lasted one hour. It was very interesting. The caves contained superb limestone formations within many chambers and these caves were inhabited as early as the stone age. After the sea level slowly declined, the Caves no longer had water in them and were inhabited by early South African bushmen. Most of the chambers are protected and therefore are not open to the tourists, however the ones that we saw were a spectacular sight nonetheless. Most of the formations have been given names with the most famous one being 'Cleopatra's needle' which is over 150,000 years old and the caves contained three different types of formations - stalagmites (that grow in an upward direction), stalactites (hanging crystals) and helictite (that grow in different directions). After the tour we headed off to George, which was located at the bottom of the mountains and as was the case the night before, had to look for our hostel.
We finally arrived in our hostel, again at night. It was a strange set-up - more like someone's house than a hostel - and the room my sister and I were allocated seemed to be someone's bedroom! However, the people were friendly and another brother/sister combination were staying there, who were from Basingstoke and I had actually met them in Cape Town at Atlantic Point, which was good. Another night was spent watching the World Cup - this time it was Spain on TV, before getting a fairly early night for the next day (and final day) of our Garden Route adventure.
The plan for the next day was to stop off at Knysna to have a quick look in the town - which was the home of the French and Denmark football teams during the World Cup, before going to Monkeyland and the Birds of Eden, which were both adjacent to each other, just a little outside of Plettenberg Bay - where we were staying that night. Knysna is a nice little town with some really nice shops so we spent some time walking around there before going to Monkeyland, which was really awesome. We had a guided tour which involved walking around a very large enclosed woodland area full of all sorts of animals, mainly monkeys. There all different types of monkeys there including one gibbon which we were lucky to see. Alongside Monkeyland there was 'Birds of Eden'. I'm not a big bird fan but it was good to walk around and see the different species of birds, especially flamingos, which I had never seen before.
Afterwards we headed off to Plettenberg Bay, another coastal town to find our hostel. We arrived in the afternoon for once in the daylight and saw Plettenberg Bay for all it's glory. A beautiful, very upmarket town on the Garden Route. It was obvious that a lot of rich people lived here. The hostel was excellent. Newly opened, with stunning views across Plettenberg bay - I was lucky enough to see the sun rising in the morning from the hostel roof-top and it was awesome. The couple that owned the hostel were also very friendly and helpful. On arrival we dumped our stuff and headed for the pub to watch the final South Africa group match - we saw South Africa win but get knocked out unfortunately and then stayed in the pub until late to watch the later matches. I also swore I saw Ricky Hatton briefly walk into the pub and then later on in the street but before I could go up to him Laura shouted out 'Alright Ricky' and he scarpered towards a strip club. Hmmm. I wonder if it was him?! The next day we had another early start for the drive to Port Elizabeth and the big England match versus Slovenia later in the afternoon. It was to be make or break for England - a must win game.
The Garden Route itself was really beautiful and three days does not do it justice. There is so much more to do than what we had time for and I would definitely come back to do some of the adventure things that the area has to offer. Back for now we had to head off to Port Elizabeth for the small matter of the England World Cup campaign. All roads lead to PE……
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