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:
