The Garden Route:

We drove down to Jeffrey’s bay on the Sunday 21 Sept with Mom’s new car spent the night camping right next to the beach. The next day, our journey along the garden route began, as we began to head towards Plettenberg bay. We stopped at every tourist site, large bridge, big tree, little forests, surf factory shops and any thing with a view. I saw an 800 year Old Outiniqua Yellow Wood tree and a 800 yr old dead one. I saw mad people bunging off the highest commercial bungi jump in the world, off Bloukrans bridge. Saw the biggest mountains I have ever seen in my life and real rain forests in Knysna (just like Kringe in die Bos). At Keurboom lagoon, we spent the next two days vegging on the beach and taking lazy drives around Plet. All the camp sites we stayed at were empty and cheap as we were there a week before peak season! We even had a well-behaved, bird crazed, holiday dog that belonged to the camp site.

We then moved on to Knysna, Sedgefield (rather disappointing) and the Wilderness, seeing the Phantom Pass (there was nothing there), the Valley of Desolation (there was nothing there either) and we finally stopped at the Wilderness . That night we spent large amounts of money on seafood and ribs (H had a mild reaction to the shrimps) but all to prepare for our drunken 8km hike to the waterfall and back through the forest the next day. We moved on to George through the Outiniqua mountain ranges (wow they were even bigger than the Tsistikama mountain ranges, I had seen two days earlier) and what a view from there…

Next stop was George were we stopped to replenish our supplies. And I would like to say that George has the best biltong I have ever tasted at for only couple of Rands… Anyway went onto Oudtshoorn and stayed at the Cango mountain resort (really nice place) were we mingled with the locals who seem to spend their weekends braaing at the campsite..



what a scary crowd… I spoke Afrikaans to a guy who loved YMCA and was rather disappointed when we told him that that song is synonymous with Homosexuals. Well it was either that or “Skop Gat Treffers”.



We of course went through the Devil’s Chimney at the Cango Caves.. we had to go with a school group and some german tourists and well they ALL panicked and got claustrophobic and some parents left there kid alone because he was scared as hell of heights, we spent our entire tour calming people down, trying to catch up to the tour guide and saving school kids from killing themselves… it was great!!

The locals said we had to go over the Swartberge (really steep mountains) as it is spectacular… well I think that was the highlight of my trip. It was a dirt road all the way up to the top, extremely steep and windy and trucks or ANY heavy vehicles are forbidden to take the route. The history behind it is that ox wagons went up that road… It is extremely hard to believe that !! Each corner or bend has a sign with the corners name on it… for eg Death Corner and Swart Hoek etc) well when we got to the top.. it was spectacular, I could see the sea but the foot of the mountain was millions of miles down, the air was fresh and cold. Just over that we can to a place they call HELL (seriously). There is nothing there as its quite a desert… then you start descending deep into the fault.

and we went right from the top all the way down to the depth of this tight canyon called “Die Tronk” . It was just like a prison, the vertical layered rocks were the bars that towered above and there was nothing but rock and more rock…. Then off to Kimberely to see Die Groot Gat. There was nothing to see on the way there but sub desert and an occasional bush. Kul jou hier , kul jou daar en siedaar! Then we were home…