Andy & Gillie's Big Adventure!: There And Back Again (and other alternative book titles)

So we saw off the Boks, just, which allowed us the opportunity to crow mildly at the racist madwoman who was hosting our Airbnb and gave Andy the excuse he barely needed to drink some beer!

The next day saw Gillie reach the ripe old age of…hrumph, hrumph…so we walked east along the glorious coastal path to a little restaurant on the beach, called Dutchies, where we proceeded to enjoy a delicious fish lunch and some very pleasant Cape wine, before walking back and stopping to watch the whales and the sea.

Hermanus is an attractive little seaside town, which benefits at this time of year from the residency of the Right Whales, with people spending hours sitting or standing and watching them from the shore, or taking boat trips out to get a closer view. It works hard to keep itself trendy, arty (there was a ‘gallery walk’ marked by orange – orange?!!– balloons while we were there, which enabled visitors to drink lots of free wine and look knowingly at local art that they never had any intention of buying) and attractive – especially for the rich white folks. But we did notice more diversity in some of the shops, bars and restaurants than in other spots i.e. it wasn’t just black people serving white people – although the service personnel are overwhelmingly black, but there were some non-white faces on the other side of the counters sometimes. Are times changing?

As our journey the following day took us inland and wasn’t too far, we decided to take a seaside route, ignoring Google Maps and following the – wait for it – Road Atlas that we bought in Stanfords, the famous map shop in Long Acre that will soon be closing its doors forever [sob, sob – Ed.] and which, Gillie insists on saying every time we refer to it, cost us a lot of money. Anyway, we set off, heading for Pearly Beach, Die Dam and L’Agulhas. Little did we realise that we would be going through Stanford on our way…[spooky – Ed.]. Nor did we realise, until we arrived on a particularly cold and blustery morning, that L’Agulhas is actually the southernmost point of the African continent – exciting or what! [what – Ed.]

After all that excitement, we headed off without further ado to our next destination. Gillie had had a whim, based on the experiences of others, to take a bit of a detour when we left Hermanus, so we drove inland to a place called Swellendam, arriving in the cold, grey afternoon at a rather cheerless guest house. We took a rather chilly walk into town – ‘perfectly safe, even at night’ (!) – then retired, still scratching our heads as to why we had really bothered. Apparently the town has a rather interesting museum. Ho hum.

Departing the next day after a hearty breakfast, we drove quite a long way along the famous Garden Route to a place called Wilderness, which wasn’t a wilderness at all, but very pleasant, with a lovely beach just over the road that annoyingly we had to drive to as there was a motorway separating us from it, but we enjoyed it nonetheless. We were staying in a little guest apartment in the main house’s garden, with a view from the front garden over lush green forest that had, the previous year, been completely burnt away by the wild fires that spring up in this area every year. Nature had recovered spectacularly, so there is hope for SoCal, if not the big mansions that have been destroyed there.

We were heading towards some other areas that had suffered recently from wild fires and people had been telling us for more than a couple of weeks that roads were closed and passes were impassable, we were really lucky and managed to miss the worst of the disruption caused by the fires as we only had a short drive to our next destination, Knysna (pronounced Nyzna), one of the jewels of the Garden Route, defined as it is by a stunning lagoon. Our Airbnb had a balcony that gave us outstanding views over the lagoon, but Gillie was not too enamoured of the rather lived-in odour emanating from the bedroom.

Our boat trip across the lagoon brought us close to The Heads, not a grandiose name for a toilet in a ship, but two headlands that almost join to form the entrance to Knysna Bay and Lagoon, and which was called by the British navy ‘the most dangerous harbour entrance in the world’. So much for the history lesson. We managed to find a local brewery on the Saturday that was showing the rugby and spent the afternoon alternating between explaining the laws and intricacies of rugby union to an interested, but annoying Dutch chap, and shouting at the incompetence of French referees. But, as they say, look in the paper on Sunday…

Onwards to Plettenberg Bay and some famous surfing beaches. Once again a lovely Airbnb and this time we could walk to the beach, even if the walk took us up some monstrously steep hills (‘good for the buttocks’ Gillie kept reassuring us!). We sort of expected something a bit surfer-shabby/hippy-chic, but were surprised to find a rather sedate, quiet town patently (sic) on hold until the season starts next month.

While we were there, we saw shoals of dolphin swimming very close to the beach and enjoying surfing in the rollers. A chap who had been out on his catamaran saw the dolphins and ran out to swim with them – literally only standing chest-high they were that close! ‘If I’d had my cozzy on, I would have been in there too – freezing sea and all!’ – Andy, later.

On to another bay – Jeffrey’s – next - and the famous Supertubes, some sort of special waves that allow the surfer to ride along the crest for a goodly time before the surf breaks, he said knowingly. Probably should say ‘it’s an A-Frame, with a backdoor and a barrel, top curls and a great face where you can rip on a great set’, or something. Down with the surfer slang. No idea what it means…Anyway, it was great fun watching their endeavours, even if there was only one surfer a day. The accommodation in JB left a bit to be desired, but it was on the beach, so we forgave it. Nuff said.

After the rather cramped conditions of Jeffrey’s Bay, we moved on to a nothing of a place called Colchester – literally a couple of streets of houses with a garage and a ‘Kwik Spar’ at the end of the road. Its significant feature is that it is on the Sundays River, so very popular with boating types.

All the houses (white-owned), as we have noticed around South Africa, had high walls and electric gates, many with electrified fences. Many security firm signs advertise ‘Armed Response’ and one of the most common selling points for Airbnb and other accommodation is ‘safe and secure – even at night’. This seems to be a population that lives in fear and is constantly trying to close itself off from the majority of the population, which only serves to heighten tensions – especially in more heavily populated areas.

Colchester’s other attraction is that it is close to entrances to Addo Elephant National Park and we had booked a game drive for the Saturday, so off we went. Our guide was not as friendly or informative as those we had met in Botswana and Namibia, but tried his best (unsuccessfully) to find some lions. We did see lots of lovely elephants and a water buffalo – so two of the Big Five – and as we had already seen lions and rhino, we weren’t too disappointed.

Back to our spacious Airbnb to watch another glorious sunset and follow England’s stuttering progress against Japan via BBC Livetext (how unsatisfactory!) until a more composed second half enabled a relaxed view of the sun setting on the Cherry Blossoms.

Our route on Sunday took us inland to the ‘dreaming spires’ – Lonely Planet South Africa – of Grahamstown, a seemingly wealthy Rhodes University town with an arty reputation. As we arrived on a Sunday everything was very closed, but we couldn’t help but notice how ill-maintained everything was: huge and several were the potholes in the roads; litter blew up and down the streets and the pavements – when there were any – were broken or damaged. We strolled past three private schools into the deserted centre and couldn’t help but wonder how the local council spends the money it presumably receives, as it certainly ain’t on infrastructure.

The lady whose house we were staying at had two very yappy Jack Russell Terriers, who thankfully didn’t keep us awake at night, but one, when we said goodbye the next day, decided to bite Andy, hard enough to draw blood in two places! Won’t be staying there again!

Heading further north on the Frontier Route, we drove up into the mountains to the delightfully-named Hogsback – no relation to the line of hills in Surrey, but a reference to three large mountains with rock formations along the crest that resemble a hog’s bristles, which overlook the town.

We had been recommended this place by our guide in the desert at Swakopmund (remember, dear reader, the German version of Scarborough on the coast in Namibia?) and decided that we had to add it to our route. It boasts such places as Hobbiton, Lothlorien Cottage, Middle Earth Nursery, Away With The Fairies Backpackers and The Fairy Realm, so it’s fair to assume that they play heavily on the Tolkien connection in these parts. In fact, we were told that JRR himself used to come here on holiday when he was very small and that his maid came from Hogsback and they took her back to Bloemfontein with them where she proceeded to fill the future genius’s head with woods and fairies and elves and what not. All somewhat unlikely, but, it makes them happy.

Anyway, we arrived at our Airbnb after an exhilarating ride through the Ecca Pass, to find a delightful little village and an outstanding rondavel-type apartment with the most amazing views over The Hogs. We went for a short walk in the evening to The 39 Steps Fall, then a longer walk the next day, ‘aided’ by possibly the most useless ‘map’, that took us along a cliff edge, where we proceeded to get lost, so found a quicker walk back and sat and watched the rain sweep over the valley as we lit a fire (!) in our little house.

Tomorrow takes us further north, into Lesotho, then on to The Drakensberg, before starting to trace our way back towards Cape Town, via Tolkien’s birthplace, Bloemfontein, so prepare for several pix from there!

A tout alors…

PS Hello Gillie here. We’ve just passed our two-month anniversary of leaving the UK. Wow! I’ve just realised when Andy was writing about Elephant Park he forgot to mention the tortoises. One even began to cross the road as we were driving to the park a few kilometres from the entrance! I know they are not part of the Big Five but they were so cute and lovely to see them in the wild.

We are in love with Hogsback (xx). Such a surreal place high up in the mountains away from anywhere. It confirms my view of the diversity of Africa, before we came I would never have believed that places like this existed here. Our Airbnb has surpassed all expectations too, with million dollar views from our sitting room and bedroom. Talking about diversity, the weather is joining in too. We arrived yesterday in 30C hot sun, today we woke up to blue skies and have been walking in the forests with 26C heat. By the time we got back at 3pm the clouds were rolling in and the temperature dropping. We’ve lit the wood burner so are now lovely and cozy. Tomorrow the forecast is rain and 11C! So there you go just like home.

We are enjoying being on the road again after a rather sedate start to our trip. It is very different from last time though, as when we were in our camper we unpacked and that was it. Everything came with us, was unpacked and we knew where everything was. Now however we are packing and unpacking (well I am, Andy’s clothes are in a bundle at the bottom of his rucksack) and trying to remember where the bathroom is in the middle of the night can be rather taxing on the brain! But we are loving it as it is a totally new experience, we are meeting so many interesting people and staying at some amazing places. Let it continue!

Bye for now much love Gillie xxxxx