The Garden Route

After hitting town with the Grey High School teachers, I wasn't quite prepared for the early 5am start inflicted on me by my father. Parental supersivion is unfortunatley exactly what I need. I felt awful, head banging and rather light headed, we made it onto the bus to start the garden route, eyes closed head spinning, window open, with a bottle of water... an excellent beginning.

First stop, Storms river. After a little nap and shower I felt maybe not quite like death, and was pursuaded by dad that the sea air would do me good. By recommendation of George from P.E., we went to Storms River Mouth. Amazing. After a hearty lunch dad managed to make the walk/hike along, up and down the step to the suspension bridge. Actually learning that dad has a bit of a phobea of such bridges, only when he was in the middle and I was swinging it to and fro. Oops. Well brave old dad made it across in one piece. On the way back to the other side I was not allowed on the bridge until dad was off! Waves were awesome and the views rather spectaular.

Next morning we we got back on the bus and headed Plattenburg Bay. A very small town, with lovely coffee and shops. To be honest there really was not much to do here, thankfully the owner of the guest house Charles was a very interesting man along with the others staying and we all hung out in the bar for the evening. I was actually rather thankful to be leaving the next day and heading to Knysner. Again another small town along the coast.

Knysner was slightly better, we found a recommonded French bakery on the island and had a seriously delicious meal, unfortunatley this was the highlight, with the weather being so windy and cold there was limited things to do. We had a braai in the evening, Knysner done.

George, home of the Railway museum. Little did Dad and I realise that with the elections it was a public holiday. Great, in a town with not much to do and all the shops there were shut. The only ray of light was the leaflet for quad biking and an open Nandos. We booked onto a Quad biking trip for the next day, I was feeling slightly happier.

Quad biking was so much fun. I could have driven around on it for hours and hours. We got to go through mud, up hills, down mud paths, through woods and get some real speed on the flat stretches. All in all awesome, and it massively lifted my mood. We hopped back on the bus and headed over to Mossel Bay. Dads dream of a trip on a train was nearly realised as we were staying on a converted sleeper train, over looking the sea. It was quite pretty. We went to a museum and saw a rather impressive ship, sailed over from Portugal also some cute clown fish. We also booked onto a sailing boat trip to go over to seal island. There are about 3000 seals on the one island, the boat travels around it choosing the east side first and finally the west side, for good reason, seals down wind bloody stink! I thought I was going to be sick!

The final stop before Cape Town was the most exciting for me, Hermanus. This is where I was to do my shark cage diving, I am actually writing this beofre I have doen the dive... Am booked on for tomorrow morning, so I do hope I will be able to complete the blog... haha until tomorrow...

My evalution of the Garden Route, it needs to be summer, when there are whales and more people. I wasnt as blown away with this section of the South Africa trip as I was with every other part of South Africa. Real let down and shame.