Jan 18-21: Swellendam & Knysna

In the morning, Mick and I made one last stop at African Gems & Minerals while Jeff met up with our host’s cleaning person to check out. Mick added one more stone to his collection – this one a Herkimer diamond. It’s not a real diamond, of course, but it’s really pretty and interesting. Mick looked it up and found a Herkimer diamond is a double-terminating (pointed on both ends) quartz crystals found in Herkimer County, NY, of all places! They’re called diamonds because they’re clear and because they have 18 facets – 6 on each end and 6 around the center.

We met up with Jeff, walked to get bagels on Bree Street, and then jumped into the car and began “The Garden Route. Officially the Garden Route runs from Mossel Bay to Port Elizabeth, but since many people start their vacation in Cape Town, the beautiful wine country in between Cape Town and Mossel Bay is unofficially included.

Wine tasting didn’t sound appealing to Mick and none of us wanted a tipsy driver, so we decided to take the wine country route, but forgo the wine itself. Instead of going through Stellenbosch, we decided to take highway 1 out of Cape Town and hook up with the R45, which took us through Franschoek, the smaller and perhaps more picturesque town. Franschoek is situated in a lush green valley below the mountainous Haweqwa Nature Reserve and the Mont Rochelle Nature Reserve, making for gorgeous views and apparently very good viticulture. The town itself was small and quaint and reminded us all a little bit of Murphys.

Instead of continuing all the way to Knysna, where we would spend two nights before our reservation at Addo Elephant National Park outside of Port Elizabeth on the 21st, we decided to overnight in Swellendam, a small town where I’d found what looked like a really cool bungalow on a farm. From Franschoek, we drove through one valley and into the next,  each differing slightly in vegetation and the mountains surrounding it.

When we reached Theewaterskloof Dam and drove along one edge for a while, the almost non-existant water made the drought painfully evident.

Swellendam is a quaint old town (4^th oldest in the Republic) with Dutch roots, situated between the Marloth and Bontebok nature reserves.

Hermitage Huisies (huisies is Afrikaans for houses) is located just outside of town on a dirt road that is home to several other farms with guest houses.

The Zaayman Family owns and lives on the property and when we arrived, Nadia was at the swimming pool with her two children. We visited with her for a while and learned that she and her husband are native South Africans, but until recently they’d been living in England. They wanted to live on a farm back in their home county, so when they found property in Swellendam, they snatched it up. Blond-haired, blue-eyed Nadia spoke with a heavily accented English. Jeff asked what her original language was and when she responded, “Afrikaans,” Jeff asked, “Which one?” Mick and I still get a laugh out of that one.

The property is home to horses, chickens, dogs, sheep and tons of wild guinea fowl. They have a tree house and a trampoline and recently built a small swimming pool, right next to the horse pasture. Mick was ready to move in! We picked up groceries at the store (including carrots for the horses), cooked up dinner, and ate on the front porch of our little bungalow, looking out at the mountains and the horses. It was perfect.

The rain was coming down in sheets in the morning, but that didn’t stop Mick and Jeff from taking a dip in the pool. And before Mick showered, he and I walked down the dirt road with our bag carrots to feed the horses.

After showers, oatmeal, and making some coffee to go, we headed out at about 10:30. Figuring the rain would affect the views on the scenic route we’d planned to take through Oudtshoorn, we decided on a shorter route to our next destination – Knysna (pronounced NICE-nuh).

Before it reaches the ocean, the Knysna River bulges out to form a huge warm water estuary called the Knysna Lagoon and the town of Knysna is situated on the northern shore.

Our Airbnb, in Knysna Quays, was on the water and we had our own little dock and the use of a two-person kayak.

Once we got ourselves situated, we walked the short distance to an area with lots of shops and restaurants. We decided on lunch at The Drydock because it was Friday – half-price sushi day! For under $20 we all had ice teas and stuffed ourselves with sushi. We’re not in Switzerland any more!

There are a weeks-worth of things to do around Knysna, but since we just had one full day, we decided on a hike at Robberg Nature Preserve just south of Plettenberg Bay.

The temperature and humidity and lack of enough water kept us from making it to the furthest point on the peninsula, but I’m convinced it couldn’t have beaten the route we took.

We’ve been on many coastal hikes, but we unanimously agreed this was the most beautiful (even with the weird amount of ants at certain times).

About an hour in, we walked to the edge of a white-sand dune atop a steep cliff, looked way down and saw what looked like big kelp beds.

Only this kelp was noisy and smelly and not actually kelp, but fur seals – hundreds, thousands maybe, both in the water and on the rocky beach below. I could have watched and listened all day, but the smell. Did I mention the smell?! Luckily, being winded, breathing through our mouths easy! From this point we took the trail to the other side of the peninsula and came across two beautiful beaches below us, separated by a wide dune that we reached by walk-sliding down the steep sand incline.

We cooled our feet in the ocean for a while before taking another short trail around a smaller peninsula with views that clinched this hike’s #1 status.

Mick found some really gross (but also cool) snails buried in the sand after we circled back to the beach and just as we were leaving we saw a sea bird catch, fly away with, fight another bird for, and then eat a fish whole.

Mick and I thought we were going to die of thirst when we got back to the parking lot. Even though we were fairly close to our condo, we stopped at a gas station on the way back for what may have been the best cold water ever. Back at the condo, Mick and I took the kayak for a loop around the waterside condos and then followed that up with a refreshing swim  around the same loop.

Jeff and I walked in the warm rain to nearby Thesen Island, but decided it was a bit too sleepy for us. We headed back town, to Chatters Bistro, which we’d seen earlier and looked good.

We had a pizza and brought one home for Mick, who’d stayed home to do homework and be free of his parents for a while.