Cape Town, RSA

We headed down to the waterfront and found parking near the Clock Tower.  We were able to make it inside (through the line at the door) Paulaner after the 1st Brazil goal (10′).  It is a Beer Hall style establishment and we joined two old German gentlemen, 68 and 72 years old.  This was the 10th World Cup they had attended in a row – 40 years straight!  We got to hear their great stories and we had a good time.  We watched the Dutch beat Brazil!  After the game, we walked around the V&A Waterfront, before settling in at Hildebrand (under Alba, the bar we went to with Claire and Ali when we first arrived in Cape Town) for our anniversary dinner.  It is a grand, old waterfront restaurant.  Formal enough for a 5 year anniversary dinner with candlelit tables outside, under a tent with a heat lamp, on the water, but it still had TVs tucked away in the corners so we could watch the late game!  We had their carbonara and Cape Rock Lobster tail and tried our first Chenin Blanc.  It was an AMAZING CRAZY World Cup game:  a missed PK in the absolute last minute, last play of overtime, due to a handball, leading to a PK shoot out because it was still tied – where the Uruguay goalie then “guessed right” 4/4 times and managed to block 2!  The Africans everywhere were displeased by the “cheater” who handballed it, leading to the PKs in the first place. All Africans were pretty much rooting for the last African team in the Cup – even our formal waiters were lined up at the back of the tent watching the final, tense minutes.  After the craziness we headed home to recap our awesome day of Groot Constantia, District 6, Bo-Kaap, Paulaner Brauhaus, Hildebrand, the V&A Waterfront and two great soccer matches with Richard and Carol over more wine.  We had a GREAT 5th anniversary and we were happy to be back in Cape Town! (And Josh was so glad soccer was back, a great anniversary gift!)

Cape Town, RSA

We visited Bo-Kaap (official), the Malay Quarter.  It is a gorgeous neighborhood of bright pastel houses and buildings.  Many Muslims live there and there are great calls to prayers.  It is definitely unique from all the other neighborhoods and has a very distinct, community feel.  We really enjoyed our time there and had a nice chat with a gentlemen who was returning home after afternoon prayers (he liked that we enjoyed his neighborhood).  We walked all over the neighborhood, up and down the slopes, and found some cute hipster stores encroaching on the edges.  We headed back to the center of Bo-Kaap for a Cape Malay lunch at Biesmiellah.  We had Denningvleis (a yummy lamb dish) and Bobotie.  It was super good.

Cape Town, RSA

We drove from Constantia to the District 6 Museum.  It reminded us a bit of what happened with the forced relocations here in Boston in the West End.  We learned a lot about how the forced removals of black South Africans were legalized and how the museum is a place to keep the memories of the people of District 6.  It was heady stuff.

Cape Town, RSA

We celebrated our 5 year anniversary with a big day!  After getting a bit lost on the way, we started at Groot Constantia, “the oldest and most historic of wine farms in South Africa”.  We had an a-may-zing breakfast in the charming courtyard seats of Groot Constantia’s Jonkerhuis Restaurant.  We walked around the grounds, admired the Cape Dutch architecture, stopped by the gift shop and picked up some gifts.

Cape Town to Oudtshoorn to Addo to Cape Agulhas to Cape Town, RSA

via the Route 62 and the Garden Route

1848km, 1150 mi – Google maps calculates 26 hours of driving time

Cape Agulhas, RSA to Cape Town, RSA (225km or 140mi)

After our great time at the southernmost tip of the continent, we spent a few minutes fiddling with the GPS (and with the analog maps) attempting to figure out if there was a connecting coastal route we could drive the whole way back to Cape Town.  Nothing seemed to work; the roads on the map didn’t appear to connect and they also weren’t named – just dashed lines.  So we decided not to chance it.  We gave Claire a call and her ma offered us a home-cooked meal for dinner!  That clinched it and our new goal was to find the quickest route home.  We took R316 through Napier (which was super cute) back up to the N2 and straight back to Cape Town.  The drive home took us less than 2 hours.  We had homemade lasagna with Claire, Richard and Carol.  It was delicious!  Thanks Carol!!  Somewhere along the route we had passed Ali going in the opposite direction, as he had driven to PE with friends for tomorrow’s game.  And other than the serious nature of Josh’s increasing soccer withdrawal, we were starting to recuperate from our colds.

The sunset almost caused many almost crashes:

Ben got tuckered out.  He was such a cuddlebug!

The drive back to Cape Town from Cape Agulhas:



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Cape Agulhas, RSA

We didn’t have a big plan for getting back to Cape Town, once we had completed the beautiful Garden Route.  That said, there was a big (to us) attraction between Mossel Bay and Cape Town.  Ever since we had been to the Cape of Good Hope, and really ever since we had realized it was within driving distance of Cape Town, we had wanted to get to Cape Agulhas.  This is the real southernmost tip of the African continent.  This was a pretty big deal to us, to get to the actual southernmost point, and Josh, being so enthralled with Prince Henry the Navigator as he was when he was a youngster – we felt the trip wouldn’t be complete without going.  Even if Prince Henry himself thought the Cape of Good Hope was the southernmost tip, if he knew what we knew today, he too would plug the coordinates into the GPS and head down there.  We made our way to Cape Agulhas (N2 through Swellendam, R319 through Bredasdorp to L’Agulhas).  We got to stand at the tip where the Indian Ocean is to the east and the Atlantic Ocean to the west.   It’s pretty remarkable to the think of the significance of a pinpoint geographical location and stand there taking it in.  We had a great time!

Back towards the lighthouse:

Josh the Navigator:

Looking south, only water and Antarctica in this direction:

Our 282km (175mi) drive from Mossel Bay to Cape Agulhas:

Knysna, RSA to Mossel Bay, RSA (113km or 70mi)

Our day got started early with breakfast being slipped through our door at 7:30am.  We enjoyed breakfast in bed, then headed down to Knysna‘s waterfront for some shopping and got some great souvenirs.  We hopped back on the N2 and were driving the Garden Route by 10:30am.  The Garden Route ends at Mossel Bay (wiki).  We stopped here to get a better look at the beaches and drive through the city a bit.  We wanted to pick up some coffees and happened on the ridiculously cute Fynbos Shoppe & Coffee Shop.  It was so cute that it was almost a shame to take our cappuccinos to go – but we wanted to see what else our South African Road Trip Adventure had in store for us… and we had a pretty good idea of what we wanted to do  next.

Knysna Waterfront (and the Drydock Food Co. from last nights awesome dinner):

Cute little shops at Knysna waterfront selling all sorts of arts & crafts, souvenirs and more:

This pub near Knysna’s waterfront reminded us of Josh’s folks’ favorite pub, Olde P, in Kalamazoo!

The drive in to Mossel Bay:

The edge of Mossel Bay:

The portion of today’s drive that finished the Garden Route:

The whole Garden Route, in context:

Plettenberg Bay, RSA to Knysna, RSA

After pulling ourselves away from the Tsitsikamma National Park we got back onto the N2 and got started with the Garden Route portion of our South African Road Trip.  We were soon back in the Western Cape province.  While Richard had suggested we stay the night in Ashton on the Garden Route portion of our adventure, we weren’t going to make it that far before sundown – and we didn’t like missing the sights by driving in the dark.

We drove around Plettenberg Bay (ritzy & nice!) then kept on driving to Knysna (“NIZE-nuh”) before deciding to stop for the night.  The N2 actually goes right through Kynsna as Main Street and we found a hotel right on the main drag through our handy guide book.  The main street area didn’t really have any awesome options for dining (though it did have good options) and we were looking for awesome.  So looking through the handy guide book, we saw that it recommended the Drydock Food Co. – but with no address and no location on the map.  It was still the most appealing to us though.  So we did a keyword search on the old GPS and just trusted (which wasn’t so handy at Addo when it thought every dirt road should lead into the park).  But this time, even though the drive through an industrial part of the waterfront wasn’t feeling promising, lo and behold – a super cute, developed waterfront appeared!  Not only did we find the awesome Drydock Food Co. restaurant at the tip of a pier, we realized we needed to wait to leave in the morning until all the cute waterfront stores opened up so we could come back and check them out!  It turns out, Knysna is a little center of South African arts and crafts and it hasn’t gotten as ritzy and upscale touristy as the nearby Plettenberg Bay.  We had a great night of drinks and great oysters and good seafood and then fun window shopping before heading home to bed.

It should be noted on the record here, that already at this point, Josh was going into major soccer withdrawal… and this was just Day 1 of the two day break in the World Cup schedule.  Poor Joshie.

Here was our 380km or (235mi) drive for the 4th day of our road trip:

The following photos are from Plett to Knysna along the N2:

Tsitsikamma National Park, RSA

After we peered down into the Storms River Gorge, we found our way down a windy road off of the N2 to the Storms River Mouth portion of the Tsitsikamma National Park (wiki).  This park was absolutely gorgeous, and was possibly Josh’s favorite part of the trip.  When we get back to Africa, we will definitely be staying a night or two here.  We sat and watched the waves crashing at the mouth of the river, then hiked an easy 1km boardwalk of stairs along the mountainside to the suspension bridges that cross the mouth of the river.  We would have loved to stay the night here at the darling oceanside cabins but it was only 4pm and we still had way too much daylight.  We were just now officially on the Garden Route here at the mouth of the river and wanted to see some more of it before the sun went down.  On our way out of the park we saw some dassies sunning themselves – and then we got to  see some vervet monkeys!  There are vervet monkeys at Addo, but we didn’t find any, and now we’ve seen some!  We were pretty excited.

Jeannette took a lot of pictures of waves:

A nice little cove:

There were great views from the boardwalk steps all the way:

A calla lily (one of our wedding flowers – 2 days from our 5 year wedding anniversary!)

We loved Storms River Mouth:

The bridges:

Looking back towards the gorge we were just at:

More waves:

The dassies (we saw their cousins this very morning!):

The cabins were right down by the water:

Vervet monkeys: