The Garden Route

While we were sad to leave our sanctuary deep in the forest trees, we were also eager to see the rest of the Garden Route and get to Port Elizabeth to see Bec again. The Garden Route is basically what they call the drive along the southern cost between Cape Town and PE.

We visited the Heads in Knysna which definitely warranted a visit. Tall standing tree covered cliffs with splintered rocks at the base that line either side of the mouth of the Knysna harbor. Waves crash around their base and the rock structure are severe interesting shapes. Where we walked around there was a grotto and a large hole in the rocks that when the waves hit made this huge thunder clap sound that shook your insides. I am running out of adjectives for the stunning, awesome and incredibly beautiful sights we are seeing.

The next town along the way that we stopped at was Plettesberg Bay. This town is much more built up, somewhat a touristy, high class beach town with lots of shops on the main road. We drove down some side streets until we found a quite entrance to the beach which Justin and I were itching to walk around on. The beach was a wide spans of beach, w

ith a fairly deep "tide pool" then a second beach beyond that, with the waves breaking on the other side. There were several teenagers using these plastic hollow tubes with a pull pump at the end, sticking them in the ground, pumping furiously, using them to pull out sand and dig a hole. It turns out they are looking for "blood worms" which I think are similar to our sand worms, so that they can use them for bate while they fish on the beach. At this point it was getting late in the day and we wanted to get to PE before dark, so we only walked around for a little while.

Our next stop was in Tsitsikama which is home to the largest bungee jump in the world. We

arrived around 5pm ish and the sun had already started going down so unfortunately Justin did not get to jump the bridge this visit. Since we are planning to one day return, it is going on our "next time we visit SA" list. We watched a few people jump off the bridge from a road side rest stop, where the bungee headquarters is, then continued on our merry way. Almost right after we got back on the highway we saw a black animal run across the road. As we got closer it turned out to be a large clan of baboons just hanging out on the side of the highway! One of them was HUGE and the rest were medium to small sized, chillin' out grooming each other.

A bit after our baboon sightings we turned into the Tsitsikama nature preserve where we were told the view of the waves and water was a must see. You drive down the axis road, passing several hiking trails which looked liked they would be totally fun as well as several cabins that you could rent and stay in. There was very little beach on the coast, mostly just the same splintered rocks we saw earlier. The surf cashed hard against the rocks throwing sea spray all over the place. The sun was going down so the waves were extra awesome in the twilight.

By the time we jumped back in the car it was basically dark out and we still had at least two hours to PE. We headed straight there along highway N2, which thankfully was equipped with an impressive reflector system to make it easier to see where you were going. Otherwise between the lack of median between traffic directions and the non existent moon, driving was just a little not fun. Justin did great and got us to PE safely.

We found Rebecca, got a tour of her apartment and then changed to go out to dinner and drink and dance the rest of the night. The next morning we head out to Sibuya Game Reserve for our one night safari!