South African Road Trip

We knew we would need a break after a month of tours, so we opted to take a couple of weeks to wander the southern coast of South Africa. Renting a car is one of the best ways to see SA, but they drive on the other side of the road and automatic cars are hard to come by. Carey took the challenge and adapted like a pro. He even started calling traffic lights “robots” (their SA name).

Cape Town

Cape Town was even more than I expected. It is full of fun local markets, fantastic restaurants, and beautiful nature. We spent a week relaxing in a lovely Airbnb with time to explore the major sites and eat some delicious food.

Cape Town Highlights –

Boulder Beach is home to an African Penguin colony. They are everywhere – we were even warned to look under our car before leaving.

Chapman’s Peak Drive is a famous scenic drive near the Cape of Good Hope. It is full of fynbos, local birds, and beautiful views. Fynbos is the name given to the distinctive vegetation only found on the southern tip of Africa. It quickly became one of Carey’s favorite things about this part of the world. 20% of African plants are located in this area of land that covers less than 0.5% of the continent.

Robben Island is the jail where Nelson Mandela spent 18 of his imprisoned years. It has been a prison of some kind for hundreds of years and its last prisoners were finally released in 1997. Upon the release of the last prisoners, the site was turned into a museum to serve as a reminder of the atrocities committed on the island. We took a ferry out to the island and went on a tour led by one of the former prisoners. It was an informative and heartbreaking experience.

The V&A Waterfront is an upscale part of town full of shops and restaurants. One part we loved was the local market. They have a massive warehouse that has been repurposed to be a “mall”, but full of local goods (food, art, clothes, jewelry, etc.). It was a lot of fun (and delicious) to explore.

The Bo Kaap neighborhood is the famously colorful section of Cape Town. It is a fun area to wander.

The Kirstenbosch Botanic Gardens are our favorite thing we did in Cape Town. They are known as one of the best botanic gardens in the world and it is easy to see why. They are full of fynbos, amazing views, and are a joy to wander. They are so large we spent an entire day wandering and didn’t see everything.

Fyn was on the Top 50 Restaurants of the World list last year and is one of the highest-rated restaurants in Africa. They are a Japanese-African fusion restaurant that focuses on local produce and seafood. We went there for lunch and it was absolutely delicious. My favorite course was their sushi (three different interpretations, each getting more and more creative). Carey’s favorite was the wild mushroom fregola (also delicious).

Truth Coffee is one of the highest-rated coffee shops in the world and is also in Cape Town. They’re famous for their “black honey” roast. We stopped by to give it a try and check out the coffee shop. It was lovely!

It was great to get to explore at a relaxed pace, order kombucha (not available in the last few countries we’ve visited and I was really missing it), and appreciate these beautiful plants.

Wine Region

After our week in Cape Town, we headed to Stellenbosch and Franschhoek. This area is full of vineyards. There are two things we really appreciated about this specific wine region –

1. The majority of the vineyards are also farms. As a result, they have fantastic farm-to-table restaurants and/or farm shops. For a couple of places, we skipped the wine tasting and ate a lovely meal or grabbed some fantastic produce.
2. A local professor developed a new grape (pinotage) by fusing the pinot noir and cinsault grapes in the 1920s. Vineyards have tried to grow pinotage grapes all over the world, but none have been successful – the grape only grows in SA. We tried some lovely pinotages while in the wine region. The younger pinotages were like a rose for winter – very drinkable and light. The aged pinotages were much drier and better for heavier meat meals.

Hermanus and the Whale Coast

Hermanus is a famous, but small, whale-watching town along the Whale Coast route. August is the off-season for visiting this part of the world. Some pros and cons –

Pros –

• Most of the mosquitos are dead.
• The whales are here!
• Lovely hiking weather – highs in the 60s and 70s, lows in the 40s.
• Great deals on almost everything (hotels, tours, etc.).
• Less crowds.

Cons –

• It is too cold to swim in the ocean (but there are a lot of Great White Sharks in the water so that may not be the worst thing).
• It can get a bit rainy.

Visiting in the off-season was perfect for us and it allowed us to see the Southern Right Whale. We stopped in Hermanus for a night to do a whale watching tour. Our b&b recommended a seaside restaurant for dinner. While we were eating, we saw a bunch of whales breaching which was absolutely amazing. Our tour was less exciting (rough seas made the whales hide and me sick), but we still got to see them in all their glory.

The Garden Route

The Garden Route is a famous 300-km route along the coast of South Africa. It starts in Mossel Bay and ends in Stormsrivier. The route is full of cute small towns, hikes, nature reserves, etc. We spent about a week working our way down the route. Some highlights –

• The Goukamma Nature Reserve Hike allowed us to hike through sand dunes full of fynbos and then back along the beach.

• Our hotel in Knysna had a beautiful view of the bay.

• We got to hike the Robberg Trail – a beautiful trail around a nature and marine protected area with a gorgeous view of the sea. The water was full of Cape Fur Seals.

• Our place in The Crags had an amazing view of the mountains.

• We found an unassuming trail with a great view of Nature’s Valley and got to stop by a farm stall with lovely food and kombucha on our way back to our hotel. We also made a new friend in our stop after our hike.

Western Cape

On our way to Port Elizabeth to catch our flight, we made a few stops on the Western Cape. Some highlights –

• Our hotel in St. Francis Bay, a major city for squid fishing with delicious calamari, was on the canals and had a kayak for us to borrow.

• While enjoying some smoothies on the beach in Jeffrey’s Bay, a world-renowned surfing destination, we got to watch dolphins playing in the water. We didn’t get a photo of the dolphins but had a great time watching them play around.

• While in Port Elizabeth, we randomly ran into some music bingo at a restaurant and had a great time learning some new songs.

Wrapping Up Time in SA

After a nice couple of weeks of no flights, we headed back to the airport. We made sure to grab some more kombucha before heading out.