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
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:
Wednesday, June 30
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:
