Dear All,

Apologies if the spelling in this post is rather worse than usual. Duncan and I have just returned from a wine tour of the Stellenbosch winelands, taking in four wineries, a cheese tasting, and a rather super lunch. We left Hermanus a day earlier than planned, having seen lots of whales (although they refused to pose for Duncan’s camera).

From Hermanus, we drove to Betty’s Bay, a Cape Town holiday resort in the same model of tasteless architecture we have seen throughout the Cape and named after the developer’s daughter. Far more interesting, however, was the colony of African, or Jackass, Penguins that live and breed on Stony Point, the sight of a former whaling station. Like the puffins of the Farne Islands, these birds surprised me on two counts: they burrow and, at around two feet tall, are a little smaller than I expected. I think this is because most pictures one sees of penguins contain only ice, snow and… other penguins, making scale a bit of an issue. However, their rather petite appearance did not detract from the enormous hilarity of these flightless birds – I was nearly as excited about them as I was about the ostriches. Duncan restrained me from any attempts at riding them.

Stony Point, it turns out, is also home to another burrowing creature – the rock hyrax, a giant guinea pig like animal which in fact is no rodent but, bizarrely, one of the closest living relatives of elephants. They have immense rock climbing prowess and are closely related to another amusing furball – the tree hyrax. They grow to a podgy two and a bit feet long and – Dad will like this – live in herds of about 70 all over Africa, notably, atop Table Mountain. The combination of dwarf of penguins and giant guinea pigs was too much for me, as much to Duncan’s embarrassment, I dissolved into fits of giggle every time a penguin waddled down the boardwalk, tried to go for a swim (but got splashed by waves and reconsidered), or jostled for position. I was far more excited than the tribes of children whose parents obviously thought they wanted to see the penguins.

Having visited the penguins, we wound our way along the coast, turning away from Walker Bay and its whales to False Bay, which is bordered on its western side by the Cape Peninsula. It was a fabulously clear sky, so across the vibrant blue and green water, we could make out the peninsula and the Cape of Good Hope. An absolutely stunning drive, equally as good as our Garden Route jaunts, brought us back to the N2 briefly before turning further north towards Stellenbosch. We wound our way through a mix of lush, green farmland and middle class suburbia for the remainder of the approach, the large number of townships of the Transkei now firmly behind us.

Stellenbosch, like so many of the towns we have come through, is a very pleasant and highly agreeable place to potter round, the pavements heaving with the umbrellas of pavement cafes and brightly coloured wares of curio stalls. Like Grahamstown, to which it feels a little similar, it is home to a large university, housed in a serious of immaculate, elegant white buildings near the town centre. I’m shocked by the sheer size of Stellenbosch University, which is home to some 22,000 students in a town less than half the size of York (just 90,000 before students).

Stellenbosch is also the centre of South Africa’s original wine route, something the ‘Stumble Inn’, the hostel in town, capitalises on with its ‘Easy Rider’ wine tours. A minibus ferried us between four farms and to Franschhoek, the culinary capital of South Africa, for lunch – the big draw of course being the sheer convenience, as even with our own transport, wine and driving don’t mix! My favourite was Fairview, a vineyard with an awful lot of goats. Consequently, they make some rather good cheese, the labels of which all bear a tower – the farm has a tower, which the goats climb up. They make some lovely wine too, which they serve up in a lovely tasting room, so I was in a very merry (lovely?) place with a glass of sticky-sweet red desert wine in one hand and a creamy blue cheese speared on a toothpick in the other. A thoroughly, thoroughly enjoyable day. Hic.

Tomorrow – the Mother City. Cape Town here we come. We’re nearly there. We give the car back the day after tomorrow and fly home in just eight days. It will be an odd feeling to arrive in Cape Town tomorrow.

Love to All xxx

Dear All,

From the Ostrich Capital of the World to Hermanus, the Whale Capital of at least South Africa. We have just arrived in Hermanus, and discovered that quite apart from the driving rain, the entire town has ground to a halt due to a whale festival. We got whale-laid by closed roads and heavy traffic and were thoroughly fed up by the whole whale thing by the time we got to the hostel. Hopefully tomorrow it won’t be raining and we can have a whale of a time.

After our ostrich riding exploits, we took things at a calmer pace and made for the Cango Caves, home of the biggest stalagtite formations in the world, tenth most popular tourist attraction in South Africa, and during the sixties, host to live music concerts, multi-coloured lighting and piped music. Part of me wishes it was still like that. Having decided it would be a good idea to visit on Heritage Day, we were herded into the caves with five hundred school children. Having opted to do the ‘adventure tour’, we thankfully split from the vast numbers of children and continued on our way with just twenty odd people in our group, ready to undertake ‘the only caving adventure in the world that requires on equiptment’. Having dispensed with the school children, we wiggled through some quite tight tunnels, tiger crawled under low ceilings, and clambered up chimneys. We discovered that in place of the school children, we had several young British and American guys, who were being big girls. They had to take their flip flops off (why are you wearing flip flops in the first place, fools?) and consequently complained about the ‘dirty water’ they were standing in and the small holes they had to squeeze through. Come on boys, really. I can do this, and I’m probably bigger than you and have appendages. Man up.

The Caves themselves were really very impressive, with massive, massive chambers, one of which could hold 2,000 people seated, back in the days that concerts were held there. The flow stone and stalagtite/mite formations were indeed bigger than any I have seen in the very many caves that Geography field trips have lead me down, and we were shown some formations I have never even heard of, let alone seen in caves – so unusual were they that I have clean forgotten their name.

Having wriggled free of the caves, I couldn’t find any walks to take Duncan on so I thought it would be a good idea to take him for a very long drive down a dirt road that amounted to a boulder field to tiny Calitzdorp, so that we could visit a vineyard. We drove into the carpark of one, found ourselves to be the only visitors, took a look at our scruffy attire (it’s done us since Nairobi…) and promptly drove away. We did stop for a drink (there were no ice creams to be found, a shame as we were in the middle of the roasting hot, arid Karoo), but our little excursion was essentially ‘fruitless’. Boom boom.

From Oudtshoorn we drove to Montagu along Route 62, an inland, less touristy ‘Garden Route’ that took us through (more) breathtaking scenery first to Barrydale, a pretty Little Karoo dorp nestled in a green bowl amongst dry, yellow hills, and followed signs to The Blue Cow cafe, where we enjoyed superb milkshakes made from fresh milk from the farm. Better still, the owner saw us watching the ducks and their large brood of ducklings, and presented us with a slice of bread with which to feed them. Brilliant.

Montagu, like Barrydale and the countless other charming small towns Route 62 meanders its way through, is a pretty, Afrikaans dominated town, stuffed with farm stalls, cafes and restaurants all vying to serve you an array of deliciously fattening foods and local wine. We spent two nights at De Bos Guest Farm, a working farm run by climbers with camping, dorms and rooms. Although thankfully not an old gaol, this dorm also had a twist – it was housed in the former stable. Except that it still was a stable, really… in that it had pens with stable doors in, each pen containing two beds. There were ponies in the padock, a flock of guinea fowl running around, a very fat labrador, and, best of all – three ostriches. A throughly relaxing two nights followed, with pretty drives through valleys and mountain passes to Robertson and the tiny village of McGregor, home to McGregor wines.

We drove a circuitous route to Hermanus today, so that we could take in Cape Agulhas, the southernmost tip of the African continent, en route. This was the closest we have come to ‘tick box tourism’ – but I like to think that it is more than allowed, as we have come an awful long way over land to get here. The sky was as dramatically grey as one might hope for such a famed ship wreck point, and neither the Atlantic nor the Indian Ocean looked particularly happy to be meeting each other. As is to be expected, the place was crawling with tourists, so we took our photos and were on our way just as the first rain drops fell.

Tomorrow, we will be exploring the Whale Coast, looking for whales (I might be feeling a little kinder towards them tomorrow), and hopefully, sampling beer at a local microbrewery and tasting cheese and a nearby cheese farm. Whales, cheese, and beer.

Love to All xxx

Dear All,

Phew! As you might guess, this being my second post of the day, South Africa is keeping me very busy! Today has been wonderfully exhausting, between marching through forest, leaning over cliffs and browsing bookshops. I write this on my bed ‘recovering’ from both the day’s activities and an excellent meal; just to make a good day better, Duncan took me out for dinner at a superb restaurant on the waterfront, and I am stuffed full of camembert, sun dried tomatoes and South African wine!!

Our forest walk was a little more strenuous than yesterday’s (and perhaps a little more than either of us were expecting…). We dawdled over the first few kilometres (downhill) and stormed the remainder (uphill), all over thick, damp and slippy leaf litter that carpets the dense woodland. We had been told to follow Route 2 on the map for the ‘White Elephant’ walk, so I assigned Duncan the map and sauntered off in the direction of the white elephant sign. Suddenly, the signs begin to point in the opposite direction and Duncan looks at the map, confused. The sheer density of the forest limits any views and is surprisingly disorientating. We decide to walk the route in reverse. We happen accross a road; it is nowhere to be found on Route 2. Duncan begins to get frustrated with the map. We cross a river – again, no sign. Duncan gets angry with the map.  I keep following the white elephant. In his frustration, Duncan picks up the pace. A lot. I am practically jogging as we climb to the carpark, national parks office and tea room. The tea room is shut. There will be no ice cream. It is 2om and Duncan has been misled by a map, walked a rather long way, and deprived of an ice cream. We return to town promptly. We later discovered that white elephants mark route 3, not 2. Silly park ranger.

My legs twinged as I climbed out the car and began to wander round town. Walking through forest is seemingly a different matter to hills and roads, as I can still feel the effects of a tiddling 9km!

Knysna is a lovely small town, a posh sea side resort (it’s knys, na?) with an attractive waterfront lined with restaurants, small shops (stripey clothing ahoy!), and an adjoining marina, full of big catamarans. Sadly, the islands in the lagoon have been filled with more enormous, ugly houses – mock castles with turrets and mediterranean villas, painted everything from beige to terracotta, with worse in between. Fortunatley, the houses did not detract too much from the impressive view from the head – back over the lagoon and town, over to the western head, down a long way to black rocks and surf, and out to dolphins frolicking in the Indian Ocean.

Dinner, at 34 South on the waterfront, was really something special. A cafe-cum-restaurant-cum-shop-cum-fishmonger-cum-bar-cum-deli-sort-of, you can order goodies like olives, tabbouleh, and dolmades by the 100grms from the deli, which are served tapas-style with homemade bread, salad and oil + vinegar. Everything is either homemade or locally sourced, and their range of fresh fish, oysters and other seafood quite something. Our hot camembert on sundried tomatoes and rye bread with avocado was rich and delicious, and the attractive decor (nautical stripes and bench seats) and excellent service made the whole evening really splendid. A wonderful finish to the day.

Tomorrow – Oudtshoorn! Ostriches! Feather Barons!

Love to All xxx

Dear All,

The Garden Route has begun in earnest. Not taken with Jeffrey’s Bay’s hideous collection of ugly houses and banal urban sprawl, we packed up and headed for Knysna, not 200km down the coast. The map has exploded into a rash of red triangles marking tourist attractions, bordered by the green blocks of national parks and nature reserves, and the broad open spaces of the Eastern Cape has disappeared; forests and plantations now hem either side of the 2 as we strike into the Western Cape and onto the Garden Route.

For this drive more than any other (thus far), I am very glad we have the car, as we took all day over the drive, taking long stops whenever we fancied. The Rough Guide is indeed correct – you need your own transport to get the most out of the Garden Route; being hemmed in by forests, you see very little from the main road. Thatsaaid, the first of our leisurely stops was bang on the main road, at what I am quite ready to believe is South Africa’s most beautifully situated service station. The Total services sit atop the western side of an enourmous gorge, which drops dramatically down steep slopes thick with glossy green vegetation to Storms River, which rushes under an attractive 1950s arch bridge that spans the gorge. Not content with having just driven over the bridge, we parked up and walked to the middle, from where we could see the river, tiny, hundreds of feet below us, gurgling towards the sea. My legs turned to jelly a little bit.

Further on, we turned off the N2 towards Nature’s Valley, a tiny village and nature reserve inside Tsitsikamma National Park, where sevral rivers meet the sea. Distracting Duncan with an ice cream, I bought a map and enquired about short walks. We pottered along the boardwalk to the stunningly beautiful beach and set off on an hour-and-a-half’s walk. It had somehow ’slipped’ my mind to tell Duncan how long the walk was.

The path turned off the beach into dune woodland, where the dappled light and hanging branches were such that I expected to happen accross a troop of nymphs or a few wandering fairies. The path turned and went up a few steps. It turned again and went up a few more. Several times. Another turn and a lot of steps come into view. I begin to regret running up the first few and Duncan suggests we’re on the wrong path. I assure him it’s an adventure and, half-convinced, we continue. A pause to take in panoramic views of the rocky headland, beach and village refreshes us and the remainder of the stiff climb seems easier. We skip down the descent and find ourselves standing on the riverbed of Salt River, right at its mouth. There is a slight problem – the tide is nearly in and our route back along the shore obscured. Much clambering ensues and we are glad to arrive back on the beach, exhilerated and pleseantly tired. I see from my watch we have been walking for an hour and a half and break it to Duncan that I had been anticipating this.

He rejects my offer of another ice cream.

We continued along the coast and stopped at Plettenberg Bay to buy groceries and oggle some more hideous houses. The weather closes in as we drove the final kilometres to Knysna, the road lined with curio stalls, potteries, and farm shops, interspersed with brown ‘attraction’ signs at regular intervals. The road to Knysna was perhaps the most beaten path yet!

I am taking Duncan on another walk today – 9kms through Knysna forest, dense indiginous woodland that is reputedly home to Knysna’s last remaining elephants – all 3 of them. This afternoon, we plan on pottering round town and driving to the eastern head – Knysna is built around a lagoon behind a breach in the cliff shoreline, the two heads providing views. We move on to Oudsthorn tomorrow, where I plan to ride an ostrich.

Love to All xxx

Dear All,

I’m sure you will be pleased to hear that Duncan and I have escaped both the hippy commune in Port St Johns and a Grahamstown gaol. We have fled hundreds of miles through the Eastern Cape, past East London and Port Elizabeth, and landed in Jeffrey’s Bay, the start of the Sunshine Coast, a nudge away from the Garden Route. The landscape along the way has been uniformly jaw dropping, as we follow the now very familiar N2 through arid bush, down lush green hillsides, and over wonderfully named rivers – the ‘Great Fish’ is a personal favourite. It is fed by a tributary: the ‘Little Fish’.

Between driving through gorgeous, rolling countryside around Port St Johns, exploring the beach, and avoiding hippies, I took it upon myself to direct Duncan up to the airstrip. Atop a cliff (one of the Gates of St John), I had read that it affords magnificent views over the river, town and sea. Due to a bizarre one way systen combined with roads leading nowhere, we were on gravel before I’d even directed Duncan up the steep, steep paved road.
“We’re looking for a turning to the right coming up…”
“Are you sure? Seeing as turning right would mean turning off the cliff”
“Mrmm. I think it must turn away from the edge in a minute…”
Our right turn was a dirt path. We followed it for someway before turning, as Duncan’s palms were sweating and some Ministry of Works employees (also atop the cliff) were looking at us funny. Although we never quite made it to the airstrip (I think the map is lying), we did get some fabulous views of Port St Johns, the nearby lagoon, and the frilly white surf of the Indian Ocean breaking onto the rocky beach.

Beautiful South Africa continued to unfold beneath us as we drove to Grahamstown yesterday; the empty road and 360 degree vistas made us feel like the only two people in the world surveying our kingdom. You will be pleased to hear that our escape from gaol is totally unrelated to law-breaking or the police, but in fact the hostel we stayed in last night – Grahamstown is perhaps the only town to have a backpackers hostel housed in a former gaol. We slept in a cell covered in etched graffiti (some original… bible verses and the like…) with a great thick heavy door that you padlocked closed. It was freezing and I had to bend double to get through the doors. Duncan got a bit spooked; the creepy feeling of the place wasn’t really helped by the fact that we appeared to be the only ones staying. Cafe-style tables in a courtyard ain’t gonna hide the 12ft walls around it.

Apart from our accomodation, Grahamstown is a very, very pretty town stuffed with posh coffee shops, nice restaurants, and students (it is home to Rhodes University). We passed a very pleseant morning pottering around the quiet streets to the sound of Sunday-morning church bells, stopping for coffee and muffins before climbing back into the trusty Chico to head to J-Bay.

As today’s drive was much shorter, we stopped off en route at a wild flower reserve, with lovely grassy picnic sites surrounded by a plethora of plants. With the exception of a king protea and a few others, we had sadly arrived a little early – Spring is only just upon South Africa so the flowers weren’t in bloom.

We are in J-Bay for two nights, before moving on to Knysna on Tuesday.

Love to All xxx

Dear All,

We crossed the border into Swaziland today and in many ways, into a different world. Partly, this feeling is down to the weather – we pulled on our jumpers at the border, surprised by drizzle, and watched the stunning hills and plateaus of Swaziland timidly reveal themselves from beneath a thick, grey cape of low, dense cloud over the 70 odd kilometres to Manzini.

This border crossing felt further from Zobue, where we left Malawi, than even the many miles we have covered since would suggest. With no forms to fill in, we simply handed our passports to an official in civilian clothing who, despite being interrupted in the middle of a tense solitaire game on his computer, greeted us (in a slightly bemused fashion – British passports are rarely seen at this border), stamped our passports and wished us a nice stay. Coming out of the toilet, I discovered the minibus, Duncan (and my passport!!) where not where I left them. Of course, this was the point an official appeared, wanting to see my passport.

“My passport is with my ‘husband’! He was here with the bus, but…” I indicated the now empty stretch of tarmac.
“Oh!” said the offical, “Never mind, you can go”
“Thank you!” I breathe, relieved.
“Where are you from?”
“England”
“OK, it doesn’t matter.”

Top tips for would be illegal immigrants to Swaziland – ‘lose’ a ‘husband’ and tell them you’re British.

A little further down the road, we are pulled over at an army roadblock. Gone is the pomp of Mozambican uniforms, as we disembark the minibus a form a line in front of a group of soldiers in smart DPM S94, DMS combat boots (with trousers bloused) and, at last, berets in a mute navy (as opposed to fire-engine red as favoured further north), moulded British-style, with the silly ribbon bits snipped off the back. At least half the group, by now searching the Mozambicans’ bags, were wearing Grandpa-style moustaches. I hand my passport over.

“Patricia. Patricia Hazel” the soldier says, taking particular care over the C.
“Yes…”
“A lovely name” he smiles, handing the passport back and not searching my bag.
“Thank you” I respond, happily bemused, as another soldier enquires how I enjoyed my stay in Mozambique, and welcomes me to Swaziland, a “peaceful” country. Although this, I’m sure, was a Swazi dig at Mozambique, Lonely Planet makes a fair point. The King of Swaziland has 13 wives and over 200 siblings (bigger even than Duncan’s family!), meaning remaining ‘peaceful’ is the national interest – in tiny Swaziland those figures must make everyone royalty.

Swaziland Backpackers is also a far cry from even the swisher hostels of further north. So close to South Africa, hot water is not only de rigeur but isn’t heated by a wood fire under the tank, whilst the very well appointed guest kitchen is furnished with an electric kettle and toaster. I am trying my hardest to resist the bright-red plastic bathroom’s decadent lure; it contains a bath, the first thing I have promised myself on my return home.

We pottered into town to gather to necessary avacado-sandwich-making components for breakfast and found ourselves amazed by the vast array of brightly coloured tupperware for sale in Shoprite, a large South African chain. In spite of such kitchen luxuries, Manzini bears a striking resemblence to Kettering or Wrexham, with slightly more pineapples, slightly fewer tracksuits, but around the same number of KFCs. As disparaging as I sound, however, Manzini presents quite a culture shock – the level of development is startling, even in comparison to Maputo’s ‘bright lights’.

Sadly there were people in the hostel on our return. The culture shock became total. Swaziland Backpackers is a ‘Baz Bus’ stop – a hop on, hop off bus service that ferries backpackers from one hostel to another round South Africa. It sounds brilliant in theory, ploughing along routes difficult to reach by public transport. Worse luck, then, that it appears to be populated by Round-the-World ticket holders that are only vaguely aware what country they’re in. I may be being snobby, but having picked my jaw up off the floor I tried my hardest to listen earnestly to the heartfelt complaints of a Liverpudlian with bright red hair who, having meant to be “going through some mountains” (the Drakensberg…) had got off in the wrong place and found herself in Swaziland. Here, she was having to pay for all her own quad-biking, so was seeking a refund for the whole ticket from her travel agent. Worse still, she and her friend might need a taxi to get them back to Jo’burg, as they hadn’t paid for a the Swaziland section of the ticket. I bit my tongue and didn’t mention public transport.

Tomorrow, we leave Swaziland – moving on hastily to take up a fabulous offer of a ‘real Sunday lunch’ from the Becks, my Mum’s second cousin and family, in Pietermaritzburg. From there we will consider our transport ‘options’… hopefully avoiding red-haired Liverpuddlians on quad bikes.

Love to All xxx

PS – to reassure all parties, Duncan and I haven’t eloped; Duncan is my ‘husband’ and not my husband. The inverted commas are silent in speech, however.