Following our trip to Egypt we went down to South Africa. We flew from Cairo in the early hours of the morning to Addis Ababa where we changed to another Ethiopian Airlines flight to Cape Town. We landed in Cape Town around 2:00 pm. The entry into South Africa was very quick and easy. We were one of the first off the plane, there was no line at customs and we walked straight up to the rental car counter and got our car. We were on our way within 30 or 40 minutes.
We were staying at our friend Andre’s house just outside Cape Town, in Bloubergstrand, on Blouberg Beach. It was a beautiful spot with wonderful views over to Cape Town and Table Mountain. Andre’s friend Erika, who stays in the house quite often, showed us around and told us how everything worked.
Although the view from the house was wonderful, it was quite cool outside and it was very windy. For whatever reason there wasn’t any heating in the house so we had a quick bite to eat from the things Erika had provided for us and we went straight to bed. It had been a long 36 or more hours without proper sleep.
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| Table Mountain and Cape Town from Bloubergstrand |
The next morning we were awakened to beautiful views of Table Mountain. We drove the short distance down to the beach and had breakfast at one of the cafe’s there, Ons Huisie (our small house in Afrikaans).
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| Victoria Waterfront, Cape Town |
We then drove into Cape Town, about a 30 minute drive. We didn’t really have a plan but we ended up parking around the Victoria Waterfront. The Victoria Waterfront is the old port area of Cape Town that has been undergoing serious modernization with new shops, restaurants, an art gallery and museums. It is a beautiful area.
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| Victoria Waterfront, Cape Town |
We stopped for lunch in a small restaurant and listened while a group of local Africans played music in the square in front of us. Primarily percussion based but really good.
After more exploration we went back to the car (only $2 for nearly 4 hours parking in the city center - very nice) and headed up the hill to take the cable car to the top of Table Mountain. We were expecting lines and parking problems but no, it all was quite efficient. The cable car’s floor rotated as it ascended so everyone got a view of all sides - the mountain, the city below, and the ocean.
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| Cape Town from Table Mountain |
On top there were many viewpoints to look down on the city. There were also many trails - we did the main loop trail around the top.
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| The Dassie on Table Mountain |
Near the end of our hike we came across a Dassie or Rock Hyrax. This small marmot like animal is quite cute and doesn’t seem to be bothered by the presence of people. It posed for photos while continuing to feed. Strangely the Dassie’s closest living relative is the elephant - apparently its teeth have similarities to an elephant’s tusks and like the elephant it has internal testicles - TMI.
We took the cable car down before it got dark and drove back to Andre’s house. On the way we stopped at a grocery store, Checkers, one of the main grocery store chains in South Africa, and got some food for dinner. Again, it was quite cold in the house and we were off to bed early just to keep warm.
The next morning we decided to drive to see the coast south of Cape Town. There was a bit of confusion as to where we were going - the Cape of Good Hope, the point where the South African coastline turns to the east, or the Cape Agulhas, the southernmost tip of Africa where the Indian and Pacific Oceans meet. We went to Cape Agulhas - quite a long drive.
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| The road to Cape Agulhas |
Cape Town is surrounded by dramatic mountains and we climbed out of the city over a pass into the countryside to the east. The mountain road was an amazing route and once over the top we crossed into some major agricultural land. This was not small farms, it was large scale industrial farms. As far as you could see the land was divided into huge cultivated fields along rolling hillsides. It was fall so the crops had been harvested already. I imagine the majority of the area was growing wheat.
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| Cape Agulhas Lighthouse |
We passed through Caledonia, Napier and then on to Bredersdorp, the largest town in the area, before reaching the end of the road and the most southerly tip of Africa, Cape Agulhas. There is a nice lighthouse at the Cape and we climbed up the 4 narrow steep ladders to reach the top. Health and Safety would have likely prevented us making that precarious climb in the UK or the US.
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| Where Oceans Meet - Cape Agulhas |
The most southerly point itself is identified with a huge sculpture of a map of Africa spread out on the ground and a small monument identifying the Indian Ocean on one side and the Atlantic on the other. After the obligatory photos we went back into Cape Agulhas and had coffee and pasteis de nata at a coffee shop. Diana also made the first earring purchase of the trip from the very same coffee shop.
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| Hermanus |
On the way back we took a more leisurely route and turned off towards the west coast and Hermanus. Hermanus is a major whale watching center in the right season. April was not the right season. But in the winter it is one of the best locations for observing whales from land.
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| Kogel Bay |
From Hermanus we followed the coast north, through Betty’s Bay, Kogel Bay, Gordons Bay and into Somerset West, a suburb of Cape Town before finally arriving in Bloubergstrand.
The next day, a Saturday, we drove to the other cape, the Cape of Good Hope. This was a shorter drive through Muizenburg and Kalk Bay and on to Fish Hoek, Simonstown, and Boulders Beach. There were signs of a naval presence in Simonstown (it was originally a British Naval Base and now it is South Africa’s largest Naval Base).
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| African Penguins, Boulders Beach |
We stopped in the next town, Boulders Beach where we paid the fee to look at a colony of African Penguins. Nice creatures, quite cute and not at all bothered by a bunch of humans taking pictures of them. Still an endangered species but this colony, in recent years, appears to be doing quite well.
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| Cape of Good Hope |
We then entered the Cape of Good Hope National Park and drove south to its southernmost tip. What a beautiful headland area it is. There is a lighthouse on top of the peak with a funicular running up to it. We didn’t go on the funicular but we had a nice hike over to the most southerly tip of the cape. What was remarkable was the bright blue ocean with a golden sandy beach.
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| Zebras, Cape of Good Hope Park |
Driving back north, we saw a couple of zebras grazing quite a way off the road. Our first siting of African wildlife (except for the Dassies and Penguins). Everyone was stopping to take photos. Someone said that in 10 years of visiting he had never seen a zebra there so I guess it was a bit unusual.
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| Roadside Baboons |
Out of the park we came across a family of baboons eating leaves and grasses at the side of the road. They were totally unphased by all the cars stopping to take photos and just continued to graze. There had been signs all along the way warning us that baboons are a wild animal and that they should not be fed. Apparently they are quite common in the area.
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| Road north from Cape of Good Hope |
The way back to Cape Town was quite spectacular and would have been even more spectacular if the Chapman’s Peak road were open but it wasn’t. Chapman’s Peak is an epic road, a magnificent piece of construction along the mountainside above the ocean. Unfortunately a recent rockfall had closed the road.
We had a nice dinner in Camps Bay (quite the touristy beach town) at a restaurant called Paranga before arriving back in Cape Town.
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| Singing in the rain - Victoria Waterfront |
The next morning, a Sunday morning, it was raining and cloudy. We couldn’t see any trace of Table Mountain where the prior day it had been as clear as could be. We drove into Cape Town and again parked near the Victoria Waterfront. Today was going to be a day of museums and galleries but first we had a nice breakfast at The Grand Cafe on the Waterfront.
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| Anti Apartheid Poster - Apartheid Museum |
Our first stop was the Apartheid Museum. It also was the boat dock for trips to Robben Island but because of the inclement weather the boats were not running that day. Nevertheless, the small museum was quite informative. I had forgotten many things about the struggle against apartheid. It was such a big deal when I was at college - we boycotted anyone that had a relationship with South Africa. It took until 1994 for it to finally collapse. Mandela was a very smart guy. His reconciliation with the Afrikaners ensured that they stuck around and ran the business side of the country while the black people ran the government.
We next walked over to the Oranjeziht Market. A relatively new market with all sorts of food stores and craft and clothing shops. Very hip and very crowded on a Sunday morning.
From there we stopped in for coffee and cake at a Paul’s Viennoise Cafe (there are many of these at various locations around the world). It was encouraging to see a white waiter serving on a black couple at an adjacent table. That situation could not have been imagined a few years back. There is certainly a developing black middle class in South Africa now.
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| Interior MOCAA |
Next we were on to the MOCAA - the Museum of Contemporary African Art. This museum was located in an old grain silo in the port area. The tubular concrete silos were still in place but had been sliced up to provide some 6 floors of galleries. Drilling through the concrete silo tubes provided some interesting shapes for the interior. A remarkable repurposing of an old industrial building.
The art was interesting but I am not sure there was anything truly memorable for me. Still it was a nice way to spend a wet Sunday afternoon in Cape Town.
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| Bo Kaap, Cape Town |
After the gallery we got in our car and drove over to the Bo Kaap neighborhood. This was a predominantly Moslem neighborhood that was initially occupied by the Malaysian community but now it is quite multicultural. The neighborhood is characterized by brightly colored homes. It has become a popular destination for tourists who, like me, like to photograph the colored homes.
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| Pro-Palestine Graffiti in Bo Kaap |
Bo Kaap is also quite a political neighborhood and the graffiti on the walls is definitely pro-Palestine and anti-Israel. This likely harkens back to the apartheid days in South Africa when Israel was one of the supporters of the Apartheid government.
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| Cape Town Castle |
We drove into the older part of the city and found ourselves outside the Cape Town Castle. I wasn’t aware they had a castle there. It was built by the Dutch in the 17th Century and is not so much a castle as a fine mansion. It was closing time at the Castle and everything was closed. For 10 Rand the soldier on guard let us slip in and look around the inner courtyard.
We then went to our lodging in Bloubergstrand, stopping along the way at the Pic and Pay (the other large supermarket chain) to pick up food for the night’s meal.
On Monday morning we went to a local eatery on the beach for breakfast, the Eden Cafe. There were heavy winds in the night and a lot of debris had washed up on the beaches. Mainly mussel shells and seaweed but quite a lot of plastic too. It was not a pretty sight.
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| Kirstenbosch Botanical Gardens |
After breakfast we went to the Kirstenbosch Botanical Gardens. The gardens are on the east side of Table Mountain and have been in existence since the early 1900’s. Before it was a garden it was farm land until it was purchased by Cecil Rhodes in 1895. Rhodes did not do much with the land but on his death in 1902, in nearby Muizenberg, it was given to the nation. It was developed as a Botanical Garden dedicated to the preservation of the native flora of Cape Province. In fact, it was the first botanical garden in the world to be dedicated to preserving just the native flora. This was in a time when invasive species were not necessarily considered as an environmental problem.
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| The Protea, Kirstenbosch Gardens |
It is a beautiful location. Diana is very fond of proteas and there were many many proteas around the property. We also learned about the Fynbos environment; a diverse biological environment of the Cape Province that is the smallest yet richest floral kingdom in the world (some 9.000 plant species).
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| The Avenue of Camphor Trees, Kirstenbosch |
There is also a wonderful avenue of camphor trees that was planted by Cecil Rhodes. These majestic giants are now well over 100 years old and are quite impressive.
We next drove over to the northern end of the Chapman Peak road to see if we could get along it from that end (we had been thwarted from the south on the previous Saturday). Unfortunately that wasn’t possible either so we returned back to Cape Town.
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| Truth Coffee, Cape Town |
There is a coffee shop in Cape Town called Truth Coffee. The Daily Telegraph has rated it as having the best coffee in the entire world and The Guardian has rated it as the “coolest” coffee shop in the world. Of course, that means that it has to be investigated. It was a most interesting coffee shop - quite steam punkish in its decor. We had coffee and cake and it was very good indeed but I am not sure I can vouch for it being the best in the world. I did take a second cup and something called a Monkey Bun just to make sure.
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| Cape Town City Hall |
We were in the center of old Cape Town so we walked over to the City Hall where there is a statue of Nelson Mandela waving from the balcony of the old colonial building. Again they were smart to have Mandela embracing an old colonial building rather than tearing it down.
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| Diana among the Proteas |
Nearby there was a flower market and they had many proteas for sale. I bought one for Diana for her birthday. We drove around for the rest of our time in South Africa with that protea on the back window until we had to discard it when we returned the car.
In the evening we walked down to the beach and Diana wandered around collecting shells. We dined back at the house.
The next day we decided to explore along the west coast north of Cape Town. We drove north to Langebaan. On the way we passed the Koeberg nuclear power station just a few miles north of Cape Town. It is the only nuclear power station in Africa (though one is currently being built in Egypt). It is positioned on the coast and cooled by sea water. Radioactive waste is taken away in sealed containers and buried somewhere out in the Kalahari Desert.
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| Langebaan Lagoon |
In Langebaan we walked around on the beach and explored the town (it is very small). We then went to investigate Eve’s Footprints, allegedly the earliest footprints ever found of someone from the Homo genus. Remarkably we struggled to find anyone in the town who knew anything about them.
We did go to the nearby West Coast National Park office and they pointed us to their Geelbek Entry Gate Office where there is a replica of the footprints.
On the way to Geelbek we found a nice overlook of the large salt water lagoon at Langebaan. We also saw a little wildlife too - ostriches and a few eland.
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| Eve’s Footsteps |
The Geelbek office had a small 4ft square replica of what was allegedly three footprints. They didn’t look that impressive and how they were recognized as hominid I am not sure. They were discovered in 1997 and are estimated to be some 117,000 years old.
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| West Coast National Park Office - Geelbek |
Almost as impressive as the footprints were the old Dutch farm buildings of the park office with their beautiful thatched roofs.
We drove back to Langebaan and had a very nice meal at Pearly’s on the beach. Wonderful mussels and a species of fish called KingKlip. We were entertained by kite surfers in the lagoon adjacent to Langebaan. They were performing some impressive airborne acrobatics.
We then drove back to Cape Town and prepared for our departure for the Garden Route the next day.
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| Early morning view of Table Mountain |
The next morning the weather was clear and there was a perfect view of Table Mountain from our window. We packed up and got on our way leaving the key in the mailbox as we left.
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| Paarl Rock |
Our destination for the night was Mossel Bay so we drove to the west. Our first stop was in Paarl. We wanted to see Paarl Rock a huge smooth and rounded exposure of granite rock sitting above the town. It is recognized as the second largest granite rock exposure in the world (Stone Mountain in Georgia, USA being the largest). We drove up towards the mountain but we stopped when the road got a little rough. Our little Kia saloon was not up for that.
The other interesting fact about Paarl was it was the place where Nelson Mandela walked free from prison in 1990 after 27 years behind bars.
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| The road to Mossel Bay, near Ashton |
Traveling further east, the mountain scenery was so beautiful. We passed through the Huguenot Tunnel which at 3.9 km is the longest tunnel in Africa. We drove on further through the wine country. We stopped for coffee in Worcester and continued on to Ashton. We then took the main N2 road to the coast and Mossel Bay.
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| Mossel Bay |
Our guest house for the night was the Aqua Marina where we had a nice room with a balcony overlooking the town and the bay. It was mid afternoon so we went down to the beach and I took the opportunity to get a swim in the ocean (the Indian Ocean there) - not too cold.
Mossel Bay was known for its seafood, and its namesake mussels, so we dined at a seafood restaurant that came recommended, The Cafe Gannet. Unfortunately the mussels were not good and one of Diana’s oysters was off so we had our first food fail of the trip. Still the Kabeljou or Kob fish was fine and I do like the South African Malva Pudding.
The next morning we had a nice breakfast at the hotel while overlooking the bay below. We checked out and went to explore a few things in the town.
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| Bartoloneu Dias’ Caravelle, Mossel Bay |
First was the Dias Museum. This museum commemorates the landing in Mossel Bay of the Portuguese Navigator, Bartolomeu Dias, in 1488. There is a life size replica of Dias’ caravelle that was built in Portugal and sailed down to Mossel Bay in 1988.
The museum was quite informative about the early explorers of ocean routes and the navigational technology they had at that time. Spain and Portugal were of course the leaders in that field and they made a pact that everything to the west would be available to Spain (hence the South American colonies) and everything to the east would be available to the Portuguese (so they colonized West Africa and the Indian Ocean).
There was also a nice presentation on the anti-apartheid movement in South Africa. One piece that interested me was the story of Dulcie September. A black South African teacher who became an activist and was imprisoned and under house arrest for many years. She eventually got permission to go to the UK where she continued her anti-apartheid activism and became a significant voice. She was assassinated in 1988 in Paris. The case remains unsolved but it is assumed that the South African government had a hand in it.
Like Dulcie September, there are many blacks with surnames of months of the year. Those names come from their arrival in the Cape as slaves. They were stripped of their names and given the name of the month that they set foot in South Africa.
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| Post Office Tree, Mossel Bay |
Nearby the Dias Museum is an old milkwood tree known as the Post Office Tree. It is here where early voyagers would leave letters for eachother by placing them in a shoe hanging from the tree. There is a shoe shaped construction with a real post box in it below the tree nowadays.
We continued our drive to the east with our next destination being Knysna. On the way we stopped for coffee in George.
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| Engine with Condenser - George Railway Museum |
George is not a very impressive town but it did have a fine railway museum which I did a very quick tour of. The unusual thing about many South African steam engines was their use of condensing tenders at the front of the engine. These separate tenders were used to condense and recycle water back to the engine instead of just releasing it out to the atmosphere as we did in the UK and elsewhere.
We drove further on towards Knysna, our destination for the evening. The landscape changed along the way and we started to see more forests, lakes and rivers. As we reached Knysna we ran into a lot of traffic. We didn’t know but that weekend was the Simola Hill Climb, a major car racing event that draws a lot of people. Fortunately apart from the difficulty in getting through town it didn’t have any other impact on our short stay.
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| The Heads, Knysna |
Our lodging for the evening was the Two Angels Guest House, a nice little place outside of the main town of Knysna where we had a room with a veranda overlooking Knysna Bay. After check in we drove over to an area called the Heads which is the entry into Knysna harbour. The Heads sit either side of the narrow passage of water that flows in and out of Knysna Bay. It is a treacherous fast flowing area of water and was described by one Admiral of the Royal Navy as the most difficult and dangerous harbour entry in the world.
We didn’t want to go into town for our evening meal because of all the car race event traffic so we dined at a nice Italian restaurant near The Heads.
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| Low tide, Knysna |
The next morning when we awoke, the tide was out and the entire bay in front of our room was sand. We went for a walk on the sand.
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| The Heads, Knysna |
After checking out of the hotel, we went again to The Heads and went for a walk around a trail there. It followed the headland around and provided spectacular views down the cliffs to the beach below. The tide was now turning and the water was surging into the bay between the two headlands.
Our next destination was Plettenberg Bay, just a short drive from Knysna. It was a nice drive through greenery and forested land. A real change from the drier landscapes we had experienced around Cape Town.
Our B and B in Plettenberg was the Dolphins Retreat. The manager, a delightful person called Florence, was kind enough to let us check in a little earlier. She also gave us tea and biscuits on the deck outside our room while we relaxed and watched the birds at the bird feeder.
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| Plettenberg Beach |
There is a beautiful long beach in Plettenberg with nice sand and great waves. I took the opportunity to have a swim again. The surf was wonderful and the waves were really high. Fortunately I had just read about rip currents and how to recognize them before I took my swim.
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| Plettenberg Beach |
Amazingly in the crest of the big waves before the waves broke you could see fish darting through the wave. How do they do that when mere seconds later the wave breaks and it is a raging torrent of foamy water around them.
In the evening we walked around Plettenberg. It is quite an affluent town. I think a lot of city folk from the north have second homes around there. It also felt quite safe even walking around at night. We had a meal at a South African restaurant called Nguni (Nguni is the breed of cattle that is native to South Africa). I had Nguni steak and Boboti. For dessert it was apple crumble with spekboom ice cream. Spekboom is a native succulent plant. I can’t say that the ice cream was all that remarkable.
We had a second night in Plettenberg so we had no need to rush anywhere. We had an early morning walk on the beach followed by a leisurely breakfast on the deck at the hotel, then another walk around a different beach closer to the town, Lookout Beach.
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| Bloukrans Bridge |
In the afternoon we drove north to the Bloukrans Bridge to watch the bungee jumpers. The Bloukrans Bridge has got quite a name for itself in the bungee world. It is allegedly the highest drop bungee jump from a bridge in the world. It has become a major tourist stop on the Garden Route with people either jumping themselves or just watching other people jump (which is what we did).
It was 1690 Rand to do the jump - about $100. The drop is 709 ft and that is about 5 seconds of free fall. 5 seconds is long enough to think about what might happen if the cable breaks.
We drove back to Plettenburg and I went for a late afternoon swim in the surf.
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| Malva Pudding |
In the evening we had dinner at Adi’s Kitchen, a great restaurant. We finished with malva pudding. The nice thing about malva pudding is that they do not skimp on the custard, the pudding is swimming in custard.
The next day, after another delightful breakfast on the deck outside our room, we bade farewell to our host Florence and drove further east.
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| Nature’s Valley, Groot River |
Since we didn’t have a large distance to travel we took our time and went to explore an area called Nature’s Valley. This was down a winding road from the main road downhill to the ocean. At the bottom was the estuary of the Groot River and a large lagoon before the river reaches the ocean.
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| Storms River |
We drove back up to the main road again and proceeded east to the mouth of the Storms River. There we entered the Storms River National Park and went on a short hike up the estuary of the river. This little hike is famous for having a series of suspension foot bridges over the river. There are three suspension bridges but only two were open when we were there. The other was undergoing repairs.
Back on the main road again we drove to our next hotel, the Fernery in Tsitsikamma National Park. To reach the Fernery we had around 8 km of rough dirt road. Our poor Kia rattled its way along but didn’t seem to complain too much.
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| View from The Fernery Lodge |
Since there is no place within many miles to dine we ate at the lodge’s restaurant. A very nice meal - boboti again, and of course they had malva pudding.
The canyon at the Fernery
The next morning we took a walk around the lodge’s property. It was once an old nursery for fern plants - just ferns, no flowers, no other plants, just ferns (who knew you could survive by just selling ferns?). On our walk we did see a group of vervet monkeys in the trees. They wouldn’t let us get too close.
Between Kareedouw and Joubertina
After a great breakfast in a great lodge we set off back to the main road. We had reached the eastern-most point of our exploration of the Garden Route and after driving a little east we turned north to Kareedouw and then west to Joubertina.
We passed through a lot of agricultural land. Large apple orchards and major fruit packing operations. The Du Toit company seemed to be a big player in the area - orchards, packing stations, trucks.
Towards De Rust
We next went north to Uniondale and on to De Rust. De Rust was a nice looking town with quite a few options for tourists - coffee shops, b and bs, restaurants. Next was the Meiringsport Pass where the road followed the river through a beautiful canyon.
Prince Albert
On the other side of the pass we turned west again towards the town of Prince Albert - another very pleasant town, which was also serving the tourist industry.
Entry to the Swartberg Pass
Driving south out of Prince Albert we drove towards the Swartberg Pass. The road almost immediately turned into a dirt road and it wound up and up and up the mountainside. I thought it was wonderful, but Diana was a little anxious especially when I strayed a little too close to the edge of the road.
Swartberg Pass
The storm clouds were building up and we knew there could be rain at some time so we couldn’t waste time. Our little Kia wasn’t the best vehicle for such a road but we eventually made it to the top of the pass. There were great views on all sides.
Klipspringer
On the way down the south side the road was a little easier. We passed an antelope, a klipspringer at the side of the road. It didn’t seem to be worried at our presence at all even as I backed up to get its photo from the car window. Further down there was another photo op of a baboon perched on a rock looking out over the valley.
Baboon on descent of Swartberg Pass
After 25 km of dirt we finally got to the tarmac road once more. The little Kia did well.
We were headed to Oudtshoorn for the evening, not too far from the bottom of the pass. We had a room at a farm, the De Zeekhoe Guest Farm. We arrived just in time before the rain started. We dined at the restaurant at the farm. Since many of the farms in the area, including this one, raise ostriches, I had the ostrich for dinner. It was quite tender but not like chicken as I expected, more like beef, and not my favorite.
The hotel room was quite cold and we had to light a fire in the wood stove to get warm. It was also raining for most of the night. That was bad news for our meerkat viewing the next morning. They may not come out if it is wet.
The rain wasn’t too bad at sunrise so we drove over to the spot where meerkat guide people had their base. The rain stopped but there were no meerkat sightings for over an hour. We just stood around with about 20 other folk waiting for one of them to pop its head up.
Meerkats
Finally we saw one on a mound a short distance away. That was the signal we wanted so we 20 odd people walked over and set up camp chairs in front of the mound where we had seen the first one. It was another 30 or 40 minutes before the meerkats poked their heads out again - first one, then two, then three. In all there was a family of some 5 meerkats in the burrow system. There was usually at least one meerkat keeping watch, sitting up tall, and then the others were pottering around cleaning out their burrows.
They didn’t seem to be at all bothered by 20 people sitting some 25 feet away from them. The guide that showed us the site, told us how he had gradually accustomed the meerkats to his presence and voice over some 6 months or so. Then he added more people to the mix so that now they aren’t at all disturbed by all of us sitting there. So apparently the whole affair is a little staged. In their true natural state, the meerkats wouldn’t be so easily approachable as this family. Still, they were incredibly cute.
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| Ostrich Farm |
After almost 3 hours out at the meerkat burrow, we walked back to our cars and left the site. We had breakfast back at the farm and got on our way. We stopped by a field of ostriches to observe them and take pictures. They are certainly not so cute as the meerkats but they are friendly enough.
Descending from the Franschhoek
From the farm we drove through Calizdorp, Ladismith, over the Franschhoek Pass and on to Franshoek itself. The Franschhoek Pass is another impressive mountain pass, but this time it was fully paved.
Franschhoek itself is a very affluent town - full of fancy restaurants, fine hotels and b and bs. It is the heart of the wine district. We were staying in a nice hotel, the Fleur de Soleil. They greeted us with a glass of the local sparkling wine. The area is known for its sparkling wine and it was very good. We hadn’t hardly consumed any alcohol on this trip but this single glass was exceptional.
Franschhoek
We walked around the town in the afternoon, checking out the various restaurants to find a good one for dinner. It felt a little like a Napa Valley town, not at all like an African town.
In the evening, we went to the French Connection for dinner. Not a bad dinner - kop fish for me and pork chop for Diana. It felt so safe so when walking home in the dark. I even stopped at an ATM and got some money out, totally unconcerned about getting mugged or our safety.
Huguenot Museum, Franschhoek
The next morning we walked in the rain over to the Huguenot Museum where we were educated on the history of the Huguenots. I hadn’t really paid attention to them before but they have an interesting but troubled history. They were French Protestants, followers of John Calvin in the 16th and 17th centuries. When the Catholic Church gained dominance in France they were persecuted and there were massacres leading up to the total outlawing of Protestantism in the 1680’s. This led to an exodus of Protestants from France to various parts of the world. Some came to South Africa and settled there, bringing their wine making and other skills to the country. It was a most interesting museum.
For some unknown reason there was also a perfume museum on the same site as the Huguenot Museum. Basically a very large collection of old perfume bottles. We learned that the 4711 perfume of our parents took its name from the street number of the house where it was developed in Cologne.
Stellenbosch Theological Seminary
We moved on over to the other major wine town in the area, Stellenbosch. Stellenbosch is much more well known than Franschhoek and it was much busier. We walked around the town and admired a few old Dutch buildings but we didn’t stay too long.
Moedergemente Church Stellenbosch
We then drove on the final leg of our South Africa tour, back to Cape Town. We first had to drop off keys at Andre’s house in Bloubergstrand. We had inadvertently taken the second set with us when we left the prior week. Afterwards we drove to our hotel at the airport, the Hotel Verde. We cleaned everything out of the car and took it back to the airport. We had done 2983 km in the two weeks of our trip - with the occasional rough dirt road and steep pass the little Kia did a great job.
The next morning we were up at some ridiculous hour to get to the airport in time for our 7:00 am flight to Windhoek.
