Sunday, June 27 to Thursday, July 1
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
Thursday, July 1
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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Thursday, July 1
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:
Thursday, July 1
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:
Wednesday, June 30
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:
