After almost three months, which we spent in the Western Cape and mostly in the Cape Town area, it was time to move back into our Defender and continue our trip. For the first bit, our friends Flurina and Dylan joined us. They flew to Cape Town and after rescuing us by bringing the right Diesel filter with them, the Defender was finally ready to hit the road again. We enjoyed one last dinner together in Cape Town and left towards the Garden Route. Flu and Dyli had a rental car and stayed in guesthouses and Tom and I went back to camping. Our first stop was Stellenbosch - of course, we had to enjoy a wine-tasting tour together with the two. We opted for some different vineyards this time, our first stop was J.C.Roux, where we tasted some bubbles, and then we drove to Babylonstoren, where this time, we had some more time to visit the wine museum and taste their selection of wine as well as the nice cheese and meat platters they offer. We took a stroll through the beautiful gardens and returned to Stellenbosch, where we ate dinner at Post & Pepper, a fabulous restaurant we can definitely recommend as well. Flu and Dyli slept in a nice little guest house and Tom and I stayed on a beautiful campsite called Beef’n Liki, which just recently opened. We had lovely company, a couple from South Africa, who were very enthusiastic about overlanding as well. It was nice chatting to them, and getting excited about many palces we haven’t seen so far.
Our first stop along the Garden Route was Wilderness, quite a long drive away from Stellenbosch. We agreed with Dyli and Flu to take Route 62 and drive inland instead of along the coast, so Tom and I would see something else than a couple of weeks ago, when we were driving with our other friends. Of course, we had to stop at the legendary Ronnie’s Sex Shop, a bar along the way and a tourist hot spot. Ronnie, the owner, intended to open up a little shop to sell fruits and vegetables, but his friends played a joke and changed the writing at the shop from “Ronnie’s Shop” to “Ronnie’s Sex Shop”. This turned out to be excellent unintended marketing; a lot of curious people were stopping at the shop. He had to explain the story and usually handed out a beer; that’s how he finally came up with the idea to open a bar. Today, almost everyone stops at his bar to write their name on the wall and drink a beer with Ronnie.
Up next was Oudtshoorn, where we wanted to visit some ostriches. We were running a bit late but were still lucky and had the chance to feed the ostriches at the Highgate Ostrich Farm - it was quite scary to stand next to the fence with your back facing the fence, waiting until these huge birds came from behind to pick their food out of a bucket we were holding. The force they have is unbelievable! But it was a fun experience. Of course, we also bought some ostrich fillets and an ostrich egg, which we wanted to make for breakfast the next day.
We arrived in wilderness a bit later, where Jonny, one of Tom’s old friends who we met a couple of times while we were in South Africa, organized a little braai for us at a very beautiful campsite called Wildfarm Backpackers. Flu und Dyli got to experience a very South African braai with the most amazing view - the sunset from the campsite was amazing and we had a blast together with Jonny’s friends, cooking the ostrich fillets on the fire.
Since we were in Wilderness again, we took Flu and Dyli to the cool waterfall hike which Tom and I had done already, but since we really enjoyed it a lot, we were very keen to do it one more time. After a refreshing dip in the river (actually, Dyli was the only one who jumped in) we had a late breakfast at a coffee place and drove to Robberg Nature Reserve, to go for another little hike around the peninsula. We were all pretty exhausted after all the hiking, so Flu and Dyli went to check into their hotel in Nature’s Valley to take a small nap before dinner, and Tom and I checked in at the campsite close by called the Arch. Unfortunately, it wasn’t the most beautiful of campsites and there were a ton of mosquitos, so instead of taking a nap, we went next door to Enrico’s Pizzeria, and hung out there. Dylan joined us later for dinner, while Flu stayed at the hotel because, unfortunately, she wasn’t feeling very well.
The next day, the three of us drove to Stormsrivier’s Mouth, another Nature Reserve, where we went on a small hike. Flu stayed home to fully recover, luckily, she was already feeling much better.
Tom and I decided to already continue to Jeffrey’s Bay, our next and last stop together, while Flu and Dyle enjoyed there very nice hotel in Nature’s Valley for one more night. We camped at the Island Vibes Hostel for one night and went to the Mexcian, a restaurant at which Tom used to play music a couple of times the last time he was here and therefore knew the owners well.
The following day, Dyli and Flu joined us in Jeffrey’s Bay and together we moved into a very nice Airbnb to spend the last two days altogether. Dyli and I decided that we wanted to give it a shot and rent a surfboard to try and catch some waves - no better place in South Africa than Jeffrey’s Bay. Luckily, we also had the best possible teacher at hand - another Dylan and professional surfer, who Tom and I met a few weeks earlier in Cape Town, happened to be in town as well and he was very happy to take us out and push us into a few waves. Also, Flurina tried to catch some waves for her very first time, Tom, unfortunately, had to pass since his bruised rips were still not fully recovered.
Time flew by again, and we had to say goodbye to our friends after these few days well spent together. Flu and Dyli were driving back to Cape Town and Tom and I continued east this time. We drove to Bergrivier, a private small private nature reserve with a beautiful campsite, where we intended to spend two nights and plan our further trip. Little did we know that we would be stuck in the rain for quite a while. Just when we were cooking dinner that night, a huge thunderstorm appeared and we quickly had to move our cooking and eating under the shelter they luckily provided at the campsite. We thought this would pass quickly, just like all the other times we experienced rain and thunderstorms along our trip. But now, it was like we had passed through a magic curtain when leaving Jeffrey’s Bay, the rain didn’t stop anymore. We checked the weather forecasts but there was no place close which seemed to be more dry in the next couple of days.
We hoped for the best and stuck to our plan, after all, you cannot change the weather: our next stop was Addo Elephant National Park, a quite famous and big national park famous to do a safari. It has been a while, since we last saw the big five, but the weather was not very promising. However, the drive through the park turned out more interesting than I would have imagined. We saw many elephants, they seemed to enjoy the rain a lot, and some other funny creatures we have never seen before, like for example, a giant snail that crossed the road. The campsite was ok, we even could do some laundry, but we weren’t sure where we wanted to drive to the next day. We decided to make plans in the morning and went to bed.