From Arniston we took an inland route through more wheat fields before heading back to the coast at Hermanus. The Southern Right Whale winters here where females give birth and raise the young until they are ready to begin the trek back to Antarctica for the southern summer. Whale season is June to October but even outside of those months, it is a very attractive town and has developed a year-round tourist industry. Leaving Hermanus, we began heading inlan...

With some degree of regret, we left our room at the Villa Castellini. Great room, super service and phenomenal view (see photo). Our first major stop was at Mossel Bay which was the place where Bartolomeu Dias (Portugal) rounded the southernmost point of Africa in 1488. His voyage paved the way for Vasco de Gama (accompanied by Dias) to make the first voyage around the Cape to India in 1497. A replica of Dias ship was built and sailed from Portugal to Mosse...

Today was a day trip out of Knysna to Oudtshoorn. Over the Outeniqua Pass through some magnificent country. We crossed a valley with a specific micro-climate that is the source of all the hops produced in South Africa. As we approached Oudtshoorn we began seeing Ostrich farms. They have been a major presence here since the late 1800s. In the early days, the major product was ostrich feathers. It is claimed that a pound of ostrich feathers was worth as muc...

We spent the day touring in the Knysna area, first travelling about 30 km. to Plettenberg Bay and then returning and touring Knysna. Both places are major tourism spots with a large number of retirees. Restaurants are numerous. There is obviously no shortage of wealth with some spectacular homes. This is on the Garden Route and the name is certainly deserved. Lots of beaches and great scenery. The most spectacular are the Knysna Heads that guard the entra...

We are now in a very different area of South Africa. Hard to believe it is the same country as the north and east. Everything in the Cape provinces, of which Port Elizabeth (P.E.) is capital of the East Cape, is green and lush, whereas the north and east is dry, hot. Some of the current northern landscape can be blamed on the drought, but it probably is the nature of the climate and land capability naturally. Port Elizabeth is quite an industrial centre wit...