South Africa with Family – the Garden Route

I am just back from a two week trip to Zanzibar and Rwanda, and some exciting things are happening on the Millennium Cities front, all of which I look forward to sharing with you soon…but first, I want to finish up the family trip in South Africa.

After the Shamwari Game Reserve, we went back to Port Elizabeth, rented a car to drive the “Garden Route” along the Indian Ocean coast towards Cape Town. The Garden Route has a perfectly mild temperature, year round rainfall and lush vegetation – hence, its name. We spent 3 days and 2 nights driving, but really should have taken a few extra days to allow more time for hiking, kloofing, bungee jumping or kayaking along the riverways, lagoons, coastal shores and national parks that line the Route. Although, I think my parents were all too happy to forgo those activities.

But the Garden Route is breathtakingly beautiful, and every dozen kilometers you hit another picturesque little town with an Afrikaans or Khoi-San name that none of us could pronounce. We stopped on the first day for lunch in Jeffrey’s Bay, known for its surfing and the international Billabong Surfing Competition held each July. From there it was on past Storm’s River to spend our first night at the Fish Eagle Lodge in Knysna. Knysna, considered by some the most beautiful town in South Africa, is situated between a peaceful lagoon and lush forests. It is flanked by the Knysna Heads, two very striking sandstone cliffs that form a channel through which the sea pours into the lagoon. Oysters were the food of choice in Knysna.

The next morning we detoured off the Garden Route for a day, turned north, to spend the night at the La Plume Guest House in Oudtshoorn, located in the expansive landscape of the Klein Karoo. Oudsthoorn is all about ostriches – there are 400 farms in the area and everyone eats, wears and, yes for some, even rides the large birds. La Plume Guest House is an ostrich farm as well and that night for dinner we had, what else, but ostrich steak. And for breakfast, yep, ostrich eggs scrambled – one egg is enough for the entire guest house. The next morning we arose, and although we did not do anything touristy like ride ostriches, we did do something touristy like go pet caged leopards at a nearby wilderness park (or zoo). We then drove the pass through the Outeniqua Mountains to George, Wilderness and on along the coast until we hit Cape Town in the early evening.

(Pictured: Break along the garden route, while watching out for baboons; Family at the Knysna Heads; Doing what we do best on vacation - lounging in the sun at the La Plume Guesthouse; Ostriches in Oudtshoorn, looking remarkably like my sister).