Category: 2006 Trip

We’ve been travelling for over a week now and finally have 2 days to rest. We’re at an area called Marina Beach, just outside of Durban. The weather is much hotter than Cape Town (no ‘Cape Doctor’ here to keep the temperatures down) and this region seems to have a lot of small resort towns and a slow-paced holiday feel.

We head to Kruger on Monday and have a couple of days there before wrapping up the South Africa portion of my trip in Johannesburg. I think I may have more time to blog when I get back to the Frankfurt airport (March 11!).

Our next stop was Plettenberg Bay, where my parents had another friend we were able to visit (she lives in a beautiful spot and runs a horseback riding company called Equitrailing). She mentioned that we were right around the corner from an elephant sanctuary and a place called Monkeyland, and suggested we stop in and see them while in the area. We were definitely impressed with the elephants! It was a good way for us to see them up close (way closer than we would ever have expected to). We had lunch at Monkeyland (luckily, they weren’t quite as intimidating as the baboons at Cape Point!).

Then we were off to the Eastern Cape and stopped for the night in Grahamstown, a university town where we had dinner at a British pub called the Rat and Parrot. It was neat seeing that students in South Africa seem to like the same things as students in Canada (and we saw a large table of guys trying desperately to split up the bill properly with the correct change, etc.). A very familiar scene, for sure!

We got to stop along the way to see some beaches (there was a very nice beach area at Plettenberg Bay) but the weather wasn’t hot enough to compel us to jump in.

The part of our trip that was supposed to be the most challenging was the drive through an area known as the Transkei (sounds like ‘Trans Sky’). Ever since arriving in South Africa, we were given warnings about how dangerous this part of the country would be and told not to stop at all along the way. After all the warnings, we definitely didn’t find this part of the drive to be too bad. The stops we made for gas (oops – ‘petrol’) were fine and we only had too delays – one for the traffic in Umtata and the other when there was an accident on the road. So we happy to have made it through without any scars. The risks people had warned us about were that the people wouldn’t help us if we broke down or had an accident, that there were no fences so large animals could run onto the road and pose a hazard, and that we could be faced with violent crime if we strayed from a well-travelled area. Anyway, all went well for us but I must admit that I was relieved to be finished with the drive and arrive in Kokstad. It turns out that it snows in this area, but thankfully, not while we were there!

The next day was election day in South Africa and we got to see people heading off to the polls, which was interesting to witness after hearing about it in the news all week (there were some worries because of the power outages).

This drive totally caught me off guard – I really hadn’t known that the area would be so mountainous. The roads wound around and gave spectacular views and showed me what the phrase “hairpin turn” means. I was so glad that I wasn’t the one driving! And a little glad that it was dark when we were driving through the last part (we couldn’t see how steep things were, and possibly travelled more relaxed because of it). For some reason, I had expected this part of the country to be relatively flat and grassy).

We arrived in Sedgefield, which is a small town between George and Knysna. The next day, we headed back toward Oudtshoorn (sounds like ‘Oats Horn’) – this was the way we had come in the dark, and now we were really able to appreciate what we had driven through (or, what my dad had navigated us through!).

Our destination: the Cango Caves. My mom had been here when she was about 7 years old, and my grandmother still speaks of it as something you have to see when you’re in South Africa. The Cango Caves are Africa’s largest show caves and “one of the Seven Wonders of Southern Africa” (according to the brochure). Cullen and I decided to do the Adventure Tour, which was for “lean people only” (and they meant it – at one point, the opening that you are crawling/slithering through is only 27 cm wide)! I didn’t think I was claustrophobic (apparently, this is the way to find out) but I could feel myself panicking a bit. Well, Cullen was actually wondering what was happening to me because he could hear me wheezing a little (climbing through the narrow chimneys requires a “degree of fitness”). Anyway, with the help of Cullen and our guide I made it through safely. It was fun, but not a tour I would do on my own…

We really loved Cape Town but just didn’t have enough days to stay in the city for long enough. Our second destination in South Africa was Blouberg, which isn’t really all that far from Cape Town but got us moving up the coast toward my mom’s favourite place: Churchhaven.

Before making the drive there, we met two of my parents friends that had moved from Canada to South Africa and went for lunch with them in the wine region). The scenery was beautiful and we ate at a place called Deli Meerendal. What amazed me was that we continued seeing Table Mountain for the longest time – whichever way we drove, it seemed to be just a little off in the distance.

The drive to Churchhaven (near an area called Langabond) was exciting because we got to see ostriches in the wild (a first for Cullen and me, I think!). We didn’t fully know what to expect in Churchhaven – our parents had given us ample warning about how there would be no running water, no electricity, etc. If you hadn’t told me they didn’t have these things, I wouldn’t have known! The house was rustic but certainly not shockingly basic. We really liked it there (and were a little surprised that we were able to watch TV when we had breakfast in the morning – solar-powered battery for the TV!). And at night we were able to see way more stars than we would have been able to see in the city (my mom showed Cullen and me the Southern Cross).

The next day we headed south east, into the mountains and away from the Atlantic coast.