After the quiet of the Karoo National Park, it was a bit of a contrast to return to busier roads and towns. We stared off on long straight roads with mountains on the horizon. That transitioned to the rocky mountainous passes where cars were tiny in the scale of things before opening out to the sea.
Our next base was Knysna, part of the garden route. Our apartment on Gray Street was very well equipped and had black board walls and lots of chalk comments and smiles. But Andrew thought the phrase above the toilet was talking directly to him…such a handsome chap he is.
Thesen Island, attached to the mainland was by bridge, was a good destination to walk to, to see some views and to have some very nice pastries and coffee at the Ile de pain.
We did some exploring along the garden route, but being winter it wasn’t the right time of year to truly experience it, and we had deliberately only allocated a few days just to check it out. But we saw some lovely beaches & towns and the Kynsna Heads looked great.
From Knysna we headed back over the Outeniqua pass for an overnight in Oudtshoorn at Gumtree Lodge. The weather on this day was terrible the first really inclement weather all trip and the bonus was some nice rainbows.
So we just went out for a Sunday lunch 30km out of town. One thing we have seen and consumed a lot of is old fashioned ginger beer complete with raisins.
The impetus for staying in Oudtshoorn wasn’t the famous Cango caves, but to go on the Meerkat Experience. Being winter sunrise meant a very civilised 7:30 tour start. There were about 10 people in our group and we walked to the Meerkat burrows and sat directly in front of them. Unfortunately after the experiences Andrew kept unintentionally calling them MeerRATs, so that name is sticking in my mind.
While we were waiting for the 1st Meerkat to poke his nose out the guide told us that it took 1.5 to 2 years to get the Meerkats acclimatised to people. They don’t feed the Meerkats but get them used to people being nearby. They don’t take any notice of humans: the guide shouted and the meerkats truly didn’t even move a muscle. But they were very cautious about movement and so we watchers sat in camp chairs, with rugs on our knees…waiting.
After about 30 minutes a meerkat popped up a couple of metres from where we were sitting. The group had 12 members and we saw 11 of them over the course of 15 or 20 minutes. They emerged from their burrows and pointed their tummies to the sun.
Eventually they got hungry for their first insects of the day, and as a group they turned an scurried away instantly lost to view. Having experienced the Meerkats it was still early and we decided to drive the Swartberg pass. That was supposed to have happened yesterday but we cancelled it due to the weather.
The Swartberg Pass had been a route we wanted to drive. It was built by hand and convict labour the in late 1880s by Thomas Bain, a name we came across multiple times in our travels in relation to mountain passes and roads Bain had been associated with. It stated off innocuously enough, gravel surface but relatively wide. The after the summit notice it got more windy, narrow and close to large drop-offs.
I am not normally nervous about these sort of roads, and Andrew was driving very nicely, but I have to say I was very pleased to get out the other side. When there were no other cars it was fine, but meeting another car on narrow areas, with just a bit of dry stone walling between you and the bottom of the valley was a bit nerve racking. And there was a surprising number of vehicles travelling this road on a week day.
After a quick stop for a sandwich at Prince Albert, it was down the main roads and onto Route 62 through to Robertson where we stayed at House of Pindart. Route 62 has promoted itself as a scenic driving route and it was an easy drive, with good scenery and relatively few vehicles on the road.
Being mid-afternoon as we passed, we didn’t stop at the famous Ronnies Shop for a beer. It started life as a normal farm shop, and the name was painted ready for its opening day. Then overnight his friends decided to prank him, and Sex was added. Now it is a destination along route 62.
