South Africa Continued

2008-03-04

Summary

- Drakensberg Mountains

- Log cabins; no power

After a 4 hour drive in the overland truck, we transferred into a 4×4 vehicle for the last stint up to our Drakensberg Mountain log cabins. There was no power here, so battery conservation and/or spare batteries were a necessity. There were fireplaces in each cabin, but we were told that the cabins would get too hot with a fire going as the weather was not cool enough. The log cabins were very clean in comparison to previous inns this tour, with not a spider web in site. That evening we were spoilt with dinner as well as dessert, and once again the cleaning up was all done for us. We spent the night playing ‘Presidents & Assholes’ again, while lightning flashed around us from the thunderstorms.

Drakensberg Log Cabins

2008-03-05

Summary

- Drakensberg Mountain hike; over 6 hours

- Bushmen paintings, Cape vultures & Eland

After breakfast on Wednesday morning, we headed off on our hike up the mountains. We walked for about an hour to some bushmens’ paintings on a rock face, although they were very faint as they’d weathered over time. Along the way I’d spotted a pair of Eland wandering around; these are the largest antelope. Mamma Latvia headed back to the cabins after seeing the bushmen paintings, not feeling she was able to do the rest of the hike. From here we tackled the steepest part of our hike, climbing about 600 metres at a slope of around 60 degrees. The last bit of this slope involved a few metres of rock climbing where it was difficult to find anywhere sturdy to lodge your feet. By now everyone was already feeling pretty knackered from the steep climb. A few jokes were thrown about the cape vultures that seemed to be circling close by, perhaps hoping for a tourist meal. The morning was cool and overcast, so we weren’t getting too hot which was good. The fog was just beginning to clear when we hit the top of the slope. We had a rest-stop before continuing along the mountain ranges. About 10 or 15 minutes on I realised I’d left my drink bottle and hat at the top of the slope where we’d stopped, so I went back for it. By the time I’d gone and found it and then caught back up to the group, I was struggling. Everyone else was pacing themselves, but I’d had to rush non-stop to go back and get my stuff and catch up again, which really took it out of me. From here onwards I lagged near the back of the group until we reached our highest point, which was 2100m above sea level.

By this time the sun was out and the views were spectacular. We stopped here for lunch, which we’d packed and carried up the mountain with us. It was nice to lighten the load a little after I started with 2 litres of water, a packed lunch, a rainproof jacket just in case, a head torch just in case, as well as the camera and all its spare batteries and memory cards… probably around 6 kgs all up. While eating lunch, we watched as a herd of eland trotted across the mountain ranges. It was then time to begin the descent. The trail descended at a different spot to where we’d ascended (i.e. it was a loop trail) which was good as we got to see new scenery on the way down also. There were more wild flowers on the descent. Going down the mountain actually took just as long as going up as the trail was loose rocks, so there was no rushing down. Most people ended up on their asses at one stage, I managed to keep on my feet but had rolled an ankle earlier in the hike; nothing that a few minutes rest couldn’t fix though. We finally reached the cabins again after over 6 hours of hiking; everyone was exhausted.

We had a one hour break before going horse riding. This was a first for me and as such, I think they gave me the slow horse. My horse ate grass throughout the whole explanation of how to ride, and then he didn’t want to stop eating grass! After some encouragement he finally walked out of the stables gate. I started up front, behind the guide. Along the way my horse would frequently chomp at tufts of grass as he walked, ‘eating on the run’ you might say. At one point he just stopped dead, while all the other horses behind me started getting impatient and leaving the track to go past. After a few seconds of trying to get him walking again, he started to take a leak… obviously why he’d stopped. He went on his way again, with Skye’s horse nipping at his back legs, trying to make him go faster. We passed by a pair of Eland, probably about 10 metres away from our horses. Skye’s horse eventually got too impatient and overtook my horse. Shortly after Canada’s horse did the same, then Latvia’s horse was also nipping at his legs. Canada’s horse let out a string of farts as it walked along in front of me, what a charmer. Skye’s horse did start to get a little carried away and went to take off, but Skye tugged on his reins a few times with a ‘whoooooah’ and he stepped back in line. We made it back to the stables and everyone dismounted their horses and hobbled out of the stables with sore butts and legs.

It was at about this point when I realised my arms were quite sunburnt. I had worn long sleeves on the hike and had creamed up beforehand, but of course when I got hot I rolled up my sleeves, exposing my naked arms (by naked I refer to the lack of sunscreen). Of course I’d left my tube of Aloe Vera in my big bag on the overland truck. The one time I’d needed it on the trip and I didn’t have it with me… typical. After dinner & dessert everyone was pretty buggered, so we headed to our cabins for an early night. Once again, thunderstorms sounded throughout the night; we’d been quite lucky with the weather for the hike and horse riding today. I managed to lose my lens cap somewhere today, I think it must have fallen out of my pocket. It’s a real pain in the ass as I now have to travel for a further 2 months without a lens cap, which almost guarantees the front is going to get scratched.

Skye Hiking the Drakensberg Mountains

The Steepest Part of the Drakensberg Climb

Drifters Group on top of Drakensberg Mountains (7 out of 8 from group + tour guide)

Skye Horseriding

Eland on Horseride (the antelope in the background are Eland!!!!, not the dude on the horse… I don’t know his name!)

2008-03-06

Summary

- Sterkfontein Dam

- Golden Gate National Park

- Clarens village

- Ladybrand

On Thursday morning, we ate breakfast before walking down the ‘road’ to stretch our legs after the previous day’s hike. Italy was very unwell throughout the night/early morning, as I heard since we were sharing bathrooms with her (1 bathroom per 2 bedrooms). The 4×4 took us back to the overland truck. I threw my medicines in the freezer of the truck, however since the truck had not been driven for a couple of days, the freezer had thawed out, so obviously all the food that was in there had gone off and absolutely reeked; it was enough to make you gag. When I took my meds back out, it was too late; they already stank as some of the liquid in the freezer had gotten on the bag and the medicine boxes and bottles inside the bag (obviously there must have been small holes in the bag). We hit the road to Clarens, a small country village. Along the way, we stopped off at Sterkfontein Dam and we also passed through Golden Gate National Park, which gets its name due to its golden sandstone rocks.

When we got to Clarens, we had a look through the nik-nak shops and art galleries. We went to a pub for lunch which had wireless internet. To cut a long story short, we thought it was free and were not informed that it was not free until we paid our bill. The connection was crappy the whole time, getting very slow speeds, so we only really managed to check our emails. After lunch we were back on the truck towards our accommodation for the night at Ladybrand. Along the way my window on the truck decided to fall down every minute or so. This would not have been a problem if it wasn’t for the pouring rain outside, which flew in through the window whenever it dropped open (windows on this truck open downwards as opposed to sideways like our previous tour’s truck).

We arrived at Ladybrand just before 4pm. We’d been told we were staying at a farmhouse; I’d imagined something resembling a barn, so wasn’t expecting much, just something basic. It turned out to be quite a cute little place with lots of character. Skye and I were lucky enough to get the honeymoon suite there. The room was huge with a nice big bed and we had our own bathroom, whereas others had to share; two bedrooms to one bathroom. In our bathroom was a huge bathtub. We started out by doing the laundry, which was definitely necessary in my case as my pants and socks had gotten extremely muddy on the Drakensberg Mountains hike. It took 4 sinkfuls of water to wash my pants, they were that bloody muddy! My socks now look white again as well! Skye tried to run a bath, but found that there was no hot water…. what use is a big bath when there’s no hot water?! I decided I was having a shower regardless, so had a quick freezing shower before heading down to dinner. When my cold shower came up at dinner, Kevin left the table for a moment and then came back saying the hot water switch had tripped and he’d turned them back on, so there’d be hot water in an hour or so. Great, I froze my ass off for nothing! After dinner we played Presidents and Assholes again before retiring ready for an early start to a long day of travelling tomorrow.

Eland at Ladybrand

 

2008-03-07

Summary

- Nieu Bethesda: Owl House and Kitching Fossil Exploration Centre

- Karoo

Friday morning was an early start again, being packed and ready for breakfast by 6am. None of my washing had dried, so I hung it around the inside of the bus so it could dry… I’d tried putting damp clothes in my bag previously; they don’t end up smelling too good. We hit the road for the long day of overlanding. It was a cold morning and my window of course was playing up still. After an hour of trying to jam it up, we found a temporary solution of tying a strap around the handle and looping it up around a small pole near the roof of the truck. We stopped off for lunch on the side of the road and observed the ‘birds and the bees’… well it was actually a pair of dragonflies; I’m sure you get the picture now.

Back on the road towards the Karoo desert, until we stopped off in the town of Nieu Bethesda in the middle of nowhere. The town was pretty much dead, nobody on the roads: cars or vehicles. We visited the town’s main tourist attraction; the Owl House. The Owl House was errr…. interesting… actually it was quite freaky. Apparently this lady, Miss Helen, had secluded herself from society and spent all her time making sculptures and adding ‘decorative’ things to her home, before committing suicide. Personally, I think she was kinda crazy as that just house looks creepy. Anyway, we finished at the Owl House and went to the Kitching Fossil Exploration Centre. A guy took us along the river pointing out ‘fossils’. I was a bit sceptical as most of them looked like bird crap or just something that’d been painted on the rocks. I think perhaps it could have been fossils, but it also could have been a vivid imagination as most of what we were shown didn’t really look like anything but a white dash in the rocks. However, we did later visit a museum with a bunch of fossils; the Karoo area apparently has a lot of fossils, so perhaps this has swayed me to believing what we saw. After that we wandered the town for a coffee shop. When we found one, Skye was delighted that they had strawberry milkshakes as she’d been craving one. Meanwhile I sucked down some of my flat Fanta before deciding the nearby bushes needed it more than I did.

We continued on our way to the Karoo inn, arriving late in the afternoon. The stone cabins were very much like the log cabins we’d stayed in at Drakensberg, except they were stone not wood… duh. No power again just like Drakensberg. Thunderstorms once again hit as we watched the springboks and bontebok from our cabin. After unpacking, we dug into a hearty meal and dessert… very nice I must say, my compliments to the chef (Shannon, who works at the inn). I had realised earlier that day that I didn’t have my sunglasses with me and was 95% sure I’d left them at the Ladybrand farmhouse, however attempts to get through to them were unanswered. After dinner, we were told the local ghost story regarding the man who was hanged above the fireplace right behind us, then we had the usual game of P & A before retiring for the following day. When asked what time we wanted to have breakfast in the morning, my vote of 8:30 for a 9:00 hike (because I was feeling pretty exhausted so wanted a ’sleep in’ and because we had been told it would be cold, so why leave earlier when it’s colder) was disregarded and 7:30 for 8:00 was set. Upon returning to the cabin I spent the next 15 minutes trying to catch a big hairy spider from the ceiling to put him back outside.

Statue at Owl House (Doesn’t it look like its eyes are looking at me?!)

Kitching Fossil Exploration Centre

Springbok at Karoo (yes, all of that vegetation is in the desert, they’ve had so much rain it hasn’t looked like this for 40 years!)

 

2008-03-08
Summary

- Karoo desert walk

- Thunderstorms = nap time

On Saturday morning, the fog was so thick you couldn’t see more than 10 metres in front of you, so when arriving for breakfast at 7:30am we were told the hike would not happen until 9am *rolls eyes*… so 8:30 for 9:00 would have been much better! Anyway, since I was already up, I ate breakfast then went for a walk to get some shots of the springbok and bontebok. Both were very skittish so I couldn’t get very close to them, even when creeping from bush to bush trying to keep out of their sight. As I was sitting on a rock watching a springbok, a pair of ostriches (male & female) wandered down near to where I was sitting. As I sat watching them, I noticed an ostrich chick, then noticed another 4 or 5. They didn’t seem at all fussed by my presence unlike the springbok and bontebok.

At 9:00 we headed off for our hike/walk. The Karoo desert is usually a very arid place, but the past year has seen a lot of rainfall, so there were all sorts of desert flowers present that are not normally there. Apparently the Karoo only ever looks this vegetated about every 40 years. We came across scorpions, spiders and a centipede, as well as a heap of big millipedes (a few inches long). We also saw a bunch of black wildebeest off in the distance (quite different in appearance to the blue wildebeest which is the only one we have seen previously). We had brunch shortly after we returned at about noon. Also had good news that my sunglasses had been found at Ladybrand, now the difficulty of getting them back into my own hands. I’m still not sure how we will manage it, but will probably get them couriered to Cape Town or something.

The afternoon we had to ourselves. I was totally buggered, so just wanted to have a snooze. I had forgotten my malaria tablet in the morning, so had it now meaning I couldn’t lay down for another half hour. So instead I went for a walk to seek out some game. First I went after a spingbok, when I gave up on him I went after the herd of bontebok. Soil erosion has formed a gully a few metres deep and wide, so I went down into the gully and walked along that to get closer to the herd. The moment I popped my head up, they’d spotted me and all heads were turned in my direction, these things have unbelievable sight! Lightning struck the ground off in the distance, so I decided that perhaps it was time to head back before the storm reached us. On the way back I came across a skull… I couldn’t decide if it was that of a bird or of a rabbit. Anyway, I reached the cabin about 5 or 10 minutes before the storm hit. Once again the sound of the thunderstorms here is incredible, I have never heard such loud thunder before!

I had a nap for a couple of hours, waking up occasionally when there was a loud thunderclap. Then I had a shower, packed up most of my gear and headed down for dinner. We were getting sick of playing P & A, so I played chess against Latvia and then a few of us played Jenga for a while. I headed off to bed early as I wasn’t feeling the best.

Bontebok with its Calf

Ostrich Chicks

Rabbit Skull?

2008-03-09

Summary

- historic town of Graaff-Reinet

- Knysna (Garden Route)

We left early Sunday morning for another long day on the road. Leaving the Karoo was quite a task as the high amount of rainfall over night had left the area very muddy, giving a lot of potential for bogging the truck. All was well until we came to a ‘river’. It is not supposed to be a river, but the water obviously decided it was. A few rocks were thrown into the river for the tyres to cross over. Front half of the truck got there fine, but as soon as the rear wheels hit the ‘river’ they started going sideways. Kevin reversed the truck and took put his foot to the floor to pick up some speed. The truck bounced all over the place going over the ditch/river. None of us were aware he was about to do this and Skye let out a loud squeal. Thankfully Latvia caught the squeal on video, hilarious.

We drove on to the historic town of Graaff-Reinet, arriving there at 9am. There wasn’t many people around, but then it was a Sunday morning at 9am! We visited a couple of the museums, although most of us weren’t in the mood for reading all the plaques at that time of morning. It was cool to check out the old music boxes they had there, a heap of fossils, all the guns used for game hunting and a bunch of old cameras. We walked around the town for a while, there was a lovely church there, it looked more like a cathedral. At around 10:30ish there were people everywhere; obviously the church service had finished or something. We left Graaff-Reinet at 11am, then stopped off in the middle of nowhere for a lunch break at around 1:30pm. We continued on through the Outeniqua Mountains; the barrier between the dry Karoo area and the lush coastal Garden Route area. Onward to Knysna; there are some stunning houses around the lagoon area, no doubt worth millions.

We arrived at the Knysna inn and all went for a swim since it was quite a hot and humid day and the rooms were uncomfortably warm. It’s quite strange coming from the Karoo, a desert region where they are having plenty of rainfall, to Knysna, a forest region currently very low on water supplies. We ate dinner then discussed the plan for the following day with optional activities that had to be agreed upon including sea kayaking, the elephant sanctuary, bungy jumping, and hiking the ‘Otter Trail’. After much chopping and changing, it was decided that the group would go to Plettenberg Bay only for an hour (i.e. not doing the sea kayaking there), do the elephant sanctuary, hike the ‘Otter Trail’, then go to the bungy; all this before going out to an Italian restaurant for dinner tomorrow night.

Graaff-Reinet Church

2008-03-10

Summary

- Plettenberg Bay

- Crags Elephant Sanctuary

- Otter Trail

- EnRico Italian Restaurant

On Monday morning, we started with a scrumptious breakfast before heading to Plettenberg Bay. The weather was very overcast, so not the ideal weather for the beach. We went to the town which involved a 10-15 minute walk up a 45 degree hill! We did some shopping; finally finding some yellow bananas (all we have found for the past week or so is purely green bananas, not even close to being ripe). We left Plettenberg Bay and went onto Crags Elephant Sanctuary.

At Crags Elephant Sanctuary, we got to walk with the elephants. The trainers then showed us the elephants’ “tricks” and then we fed the 3 elephants a couple of tubs of fruit. The elephant I walked with, Thandi, was the only one of the three that still had its ‘fingers’ on the end of its trunk; the others had lost their fingers in traps set by poachers. Walking with the elephant involved placing your right hand palm-up behind you and the elephant places its trunk in your hand. As Thandi still had her fingers, she actually gripped onto my hand, unlike the other elephants who simply rested the end of their trunk in your hand. When feeding Thandi, she would take the food in her trunk/fingers, whereas the other 2 elephants took the food in the curl of their trunk rather than the end of their trunk since they didn’t have the fingers to grasp the food. Thandi was the only one without tusks. Elephants now rarely have large tusks and some have none at all; this is due to genetic changes caused by poachers’ removal of elephants’ tusks in the past. We also got to feel the skin of the elephant and their eyelashes, which are extremely brittle.

We continued on to the Otter Trail along the rocky coastline. The hike took about 3 hours (1.5 hours each way) to get to the waterfall and back. The walk was very rocky, clambering over large rocks continuously. The weather was still very overcast; good from a heat perspective for walking, but not so good for taking photos, but you can’t have it both ways. After the hike we showered at the facilities there, and then went out to dinner at EnRico, stopping at the world’s highest bridge bungy jump along the way to see the last person of the day jump (i.e. it had closed to new jumpers).

It was nice to eat a restaurant meal, being able to choose what we would eat as opposed to being served with whatever was cooked. We ordered drinks and entrees; to delve into the African experience further, I thought I’d try my hand with a kudu entree (an antelope). While waiting for the entrees to come out, and shortly after the drinks came out, some kids who were kicking a football around ended up kicking it straight onto our table. The ball sent a near-full glass of coke toppling all over me and my camera, which was sitting on the table was sent crashing to the ground. Thankfully these things can take a beating, however this time not so lucky. The battery door compartment had come off and separate into its individual pieces. I gathered it up, later realising that a spring was missing. Upon going back to the ‘crash site’, I somehow managed to find the tiny spring on the ground under the table, I placed all the pieces in my jacket pocket and zipped it up. After eating dinner, Kevin negotiated the car park with the truck.

When we got back to the inn, I took the parts out of my jacket pocket…. no spring… It turns out there is a miniscule hole in the bottom of the pocket that only something as miniscule as a miniscule spring could fit through. Goodbye spring… There goes all hope of putting that back together. Upon further inspection, one of the lens filters on my lens has been dented rendering it stuck on the lens. I cannot take it off nor can I add any additional filters. Anyway, we headed off to bed in hope that the age of 25 would bring better luck tomorrow.

Crags Elephant Sanctuary

Otter Trail

2008-03-11

Summary

- Rain

- Rain

- Knysna

- Rain

When I went down for breakfast on Tuesday morning, the others in the group sang happy birthday to me which was nice. Skye gave me an African birthday card. Unfortunately today was not quite the birthday I’d hoped for. We were meant to go on a boat out on the lagoon and through the heads out to the ocean, but it was raining all morning. On the way to the docks at Knysna of course my window kept falling down on the bus. The boat trip got put it off until 12:00, when it was still raining, so the boat trip got cancelled altogether. This left us with 4 hours to wander around Knysna in the rain. Mind you the rain pretty much continued throughout the whole time. Just as well the boat got cancelled I think, as it wouldn’t have been much fun in the rain. We stopped off at an internet cafe for a while before venturing around town. We didn’t find anywhere overly appealing for lunch so settled for Wimpy… basically a Maccas with table service. After eating our wimpy burgers and wimpy chips, they gave us a wimpy lolly… it really was a wimpy lolly… only the size of a pea… if that… wimpy.

We managed to find a camera store; no spare battery compartment doors, but they could try to fix the filter (i.e. remove it) overnight, which was no good for me as we were leaving in the morning. I did however manage to pick up a lens cap which was a start. We wandered around trying to find African markets. We came across a few shops here and there selling curios, but none of them had anything that interested us much. Skye and I want to get something bigger sent home, rather than all the little nik-naks that will just sit on a shelf collecting dust. We did find some bronze sculptures we liked, but they were way out of our price range. Every time we bumped into Latvia, she would hum the ‘happy birthday’ tune as we walked by.

Upon arriving back at the Drifters Knysna Inn, Skye and I had a snooze as we were both knackered. When we woke up it was approaching 7pm so figured it was about dinner time. When I went out of our room into the rain, Latvia was walking by humming happy birthday again; this time with a bundle of balloons in her hand and a bottle of champagne in her other hand. It turns out the bundle of balloons were actually taped to a present in amongst them; I couldn’t even put the present down it had that many balloons attached to it! I couldn’t unwrap it either so Latvia handed me a toothpick to burst away at the balloons. She said there were only 24 balloons not 25 as they only came in packs of 24 After popping a few balloons, I got access to the present; scaring the crap out of the dogs in the process… except for little Pumba who had taken on a puff adder twice and been bitten on the face both times, so obviously had no fear and must be a tough little guy to have survived both occasions. Anyway back to the gift; it was a drinking chess set where each piece is a shot glass. I was quite impressed with the thought she’d put into it, since I had played a game of chess with her previously at the Karoo inn. Very nice of her

Kevin then passed around a glass of champagne to everyone and they sang happy birthday AGAIN before we sat down to dinner. After dinner Kevin brought out his version of the birthday cake, a pecan pie and apple pie. After dinner, we filled the chess shot glasses with peach liqueur, banana liqueur and sambucca, before I took on Latvia in another chess game. It was extremely confusing trying to figure out what each piece/glass was. After hitting check mate we still had plenty of full shots left on the board, so polished them off, palming off the sambuccas as neither of us liked them. Then I played P & A with the others and ended my birthday perfectly as president A great bunch I’m travelling with, who brought a big smile to my face for my birthday

2008-03-12

Summary

- Hermanus

- Long drive to Cape Town

On Wednesday morning it was very cold; it had been freezing cold overnight also. I hear that back home it is quite the opposite, with a heat wave of 8 consecutive days over 35 degrees… ouch. We packed everything and went down for breakfast, then back onto the truck for a long day on the road. I had borrowed some pliers from Kevin, and successfully managed to ‘fix’ the window clips such that the window stopped falling down… thankfully as it was raining all morning. I also used the pliers to try to bend my lens filter back into shape, but to no avail. I may have bent it partly back into shape, but not enough for it to budge… that thing is firmly stuck on there with a whole bunch of dust underneath it; between the lens and the filter. We stopped off at the Alcare Aloe factory, where we picked up some snacks preparing for a late lunch (we didn’t buy any aloe products there although most of the others on our group did). After a short break we were back on the truck on the road again.

We continued on until about 2pm, when we reached a town called Hermanus. We had lunch at Fusion Cafe, where they seemed to have an obsession with pepper… it was hard to actually taste the meal over the overwhelming pepper taste. Afterwards we had a brief look through some curio shops. I spotted a Kodak Express and although I assumed it was just a photo printing shop I thought I’d check it out. I walked in and was in luck, it was a camera store as well as a printing store, although I still figured I wouldn’t get anything out of the visit but always worth a try. I asked about the battery compartment door and as anticipated they didn’t have spare parts (I didn’t expect them to, but like I said always worth a try). Then I told the guy about the lens filter and how it was stuck on the lens now (he’d already noticed the damage to the filter as soon as I’d walked in since the damage to the filter is more pronounced now after trying to bend it back with pliers). He wasn’t convinced that it wouldn’t come off so tried his hardest to screw it off; to no avail, just giving him a very sore hand as it had done to mine. I told him I didn’t care about the filter, I just wanted to get it off. He went off and came back with a toolkit and pulled out a pair of wire cutters/scissors. He asked again if I was sure I didn’t mind the filter being damaged and I nodded and assured him that it was already damaged anyway and was no good if I couldn’t get it off and on, to which he agreed; seeing all the dust accumulated beneath the filter. He then proceeded to cut away at the filter’s edge. Meanwhile some old guy had walked into the store and was waiting behind me to be served, probably wondering what this guy was doing to the camera no doubt. As the store attendant hacked away at the filter, there was a crack and the glass shattered, at which point he froze. The look on the old guy’s face was priceless, a look of horror The shop attendant glanced up at me and I reassured him “nah that’s fine, it’s just the filter”. He ripped it off with shattered glass scattering everywhere. I now felt obliged to buy a replacement filter from him; the least I could do to repay him for his efforts and the mess that was now all over his desk. While I was at it I grabbed some spiffy lens cleaning pen, which it turns out I got the wrong one (the one intended for digital displays, not for lenses)… oh well, I didn’t care. I was just happy that the filter issue was solved. That filter was only replaced 2 months ago, so it was only 2 months old :s Never mind, like I said, I was just glad it was resolved… minimal damage to the lens, just a few scratches from the cutters.

We continued back on the road to Cape Town. The scenery along the way was absolutely spectacular! We didn’t arrive at our Cape Town Drifters Inn until 6pm (the pre-departure meeting for our next tour was scheduled to start at 6pm at another hotel in Cape Town). We grabbed our bags off the truck and asked the lady at the inn to call a taxi for us. The taxi arrived seconds after she got on the phone, wow that was fast. We still had to sort out payment for the Drifters T-shirts we’d ordered and a tip for Kevin for being our tour guide. No luck on the sunglasses, they had not yet been delivered by the courier. We quickly farewelled the other travellers in the group, before jumping in the taxi to head onto our next tour.

The Garden/Whale Route

Drifters Truck on the Garden Route

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