The rest of South Africa

I will need to backtrack slightly from my previous blog as I got so carried away with the bungee that I missed a few days before that.

From the Wild Coast, we went to Addo Elephant Park. Amazingly enough, we saw lots of elephants! The most exciting creature that we saw was actually in our campsite and appeared whilst we were cooking chicken. It was a spotted genet (not something that I had heard of before). It looks like a tabby cat with very striking silver and black markings and the longest thickest tail ever. A very cool creature - check out the Odyssey Overland official trip blog if you want to see a picture of one.

From Addo, it was on to the Storms River / Tsitsikamma National Park area where the coastline is rugged and beautiful. Did a good walk along the coast and saw dolphins playing in the surf. Then it was bungee day (see previous post) and after that excitement on to Knysna for a couple of days relaxation. Kynsna is a great holiday town on the coast where we enjoyed meals out and a game of golf (I was shockingly bad but it was fun anyway). We camped just outside of town near The Heads where the cliffs overlook a large lagoon.

Then on to Cape Algulhas which is the southern most point of Africa and where the Indian and Atlantic oceans meet. Cape Point is not the most southern point as many people believe. Cape Algulhas was windy and wet. We took the obligatory picture of us all and then sought refuge in the pub. Frankly there is little else to do in this town which was borne out by the number of drunk locals in the pub. I imagine the town has a high suicide rate as it would be a depressing place to actually live. Still the locals were so drunk that they kept buying us shots and Man Utd v Chelsea was on the TV so it wasn't all bad!

Next stop was the town of Hermanus which is famed for whale watching and Great White Shark cage diving. As I did the shark experience on my last visit to South Africa, I just enjoyed wandering around Hermanus, shopping and getting my hair cut (in desperate need after over four months on the road). There are so many whales (mostly Southern Right Whales) in the bay of Hermanus and it is an impressive sight, but having just seen so many in Mozambique I think we were not perhaps appreciating them to the extent that we should.

Final stop before Cape Town was the Stellenbosch area - home to numerous vineyards. I should also mention that the drives for the final few days have been incredibly beautiful. Winding ocean roads with huge mountains coming right down to the sea. In Stellenbosch, we visited a couple of vineyards and did some wine tasting followed by a group dinner out - a nice penultimate day to the trip.

Thursday 22nd Sept - the final day. Mixed emotions - obviously sad that this epic journey through Africa has come to an end, but also looking forward to some time out from group travel and truck life. It is over ten years since I last came to South Africa. Cape Town is a very modern city and clearly lots of work was done as a result of them hosting the World Cup last year. However, the shanty towns remain and the startling divide between rich and poor is still there. That said, what a beautiful location for a city right on the edge of the ocean with Table Mountain dominating the background. After checking into our hotel, most of us headed up the cable car to the top of Table Mountain - the view from the top is truly spectacular and we were fortunate that it was a very clear sunny day. Final drinks and goodbyes with everyone last night, although there are a few of us that will be hanging out a little longer together in Cape Town before we go our separate ways..