My three favorite flowers are aloes, proteas and arum lilies. All flowers you can see in gardens and parks but at their most beautiful when you see them out in the wild. Aloe flowering in the Karoo, proteas in the Fynbos on a mountain side and lilies growing wild in the forest. This lily I found next to the path on the way to Kerneels se Klip in the Tsitsikamma National Park. I was hoping to find one in the sun…
For my last post in this week's series on the Tsitsikamma I featuring a thing and not an activity. The Big Tree is probably one of the best known landmarks in the area and a very popular stop for tourists. An easy 500 meter boardwalk takes visitors to one of the giants of the forest. I haven't been to the Big Tree for a couple of years and one of the things I noticed while there was that the signs no…
A panoramic view of Nature's Valley from one of the scenic view site on the trail to Salt River
Early morning mist on the Outeniqua Mountains. The first thing I saw when I came out of my log cabin at Eight Bells Mountain Inn outside Mossel Bay.
Eight Bells Mountain Inn used to be one of my regular stops on tour back when I was a tourist guide but since then I haven't had a chance to visit. Until a few weeks ago. A return trip from Cape Town to Port Elizabeth meant that I had to stay over in Mossel Bay to be able to do some business on the Garden Route and Rene' Bongers, MD of Eight Bells heard that I was heading that way and…
Everybody has their preferred road trip food and drink stops. Some like to pull over at a Wimpy for their favorite coffee, stop at the same farm stall for a pie and fresh pineapple juice or that certain restaurant where the owner is also the chef and makes his pizza bases himself before popping it into the wood fire oven. I don't travel on the Garden Route as often as I would like to, but my fav Garden Route food stop at the…
The western point of Mossel Bay is named Cape St Blaze and long before the first Europeans arrived in South Africa this area was home to the Khoi people. The Khoi found shelter in the caves along this coastline, one which can be found directly below the lighthouse where archaeological digs have found that the early inhabitants lived on the abundance of shellfish available from the rocks below. The Cape St Blaze Lighthouse was erected in 1864 and up until recently…
"Hey bro, my wings are bigger than yours" A Cormorant and Pied Kingfisher sitting at the end of a jetty on Groenvlei outside Sedgefield
On my way to Cape Town recently I decided to grab a couple of Geocaches, one of them a cache called Back Stab Bridge just west of Knysna. The cache was situated close to the turnoff to Buffels Bay next to the old road and took me to this beautiful spot. And that is where the caching reference to this post stop. While cars were flying by on the N2, I could stand on the old bridge and enjoy the beauty…
Gouritz Bridge became the first bungee jumping site in South Africa and operated bungee jumps and bridge swings before people were throwing themselves off the 214m Bloukrans Bridge bungee site further down the Garden Route. I used to stop at the bridge on my Garden Route tours and with more than one company offering jumps it was always a busy spot. After offering this thrill activity for 18 years, operations seized in 2008 after it was found that the parts of the old steel bridge was…