Garden Route

We continued along the Garden route and visited the Cango caves. These caves were lived in by the native San or Bushman people. Our guide Leanne explained how the caves were discovered using a small oil lamp. She demonstrated the small area the original discoverers would have seen using their lamps and then she turned on all of the lights to show what the true scale of the cave was. There were huge stagmites and staligtites surrounding us in the large cave. We learned how the calcium rock formations occur and how water flow changes the appearance of the cave. Our guide explained that there was concerts in this cave from 1960s to 1990s however people ruined the caves appearance as they took home rock formations as souvenirs so the concerts were stopped. Nevertheless Leanne sang a song to demonstrate the acoustics of the cave. The sound was magnificent it brought goosebumps to my skin.

We stayed in Barrydale and went to a brandy tasting because Barrydale is known for its brandy. I have never had brandy before but I said I would try it and I was quite surprised how nice it was. Our hotel was the Karoo Art museum and it had very quirky art and bedroom designs.

We drove to De Hoop Nature Reserve which is a World Heritage Site for it's wild flowers and bird life. We walked down to the beach and saw dolphins swimming in the bay. After lunch we headed to Africa's most southernly point, L'Agulhas. This is also the point where the Indian Ocean meets the Atlantic Ocean. Our guide Cardi told us the that the Atlantic Ocean was colder than the Indian Ocean. We checked by comparing the coldness of the water from one hand and the other but we were not convinced that there was any difference. There was a nice statue which was the map of Africa and it showed the rivers, mountains and desserts of the continent. It was nice to try and figure out where we had travelled and compare it to the size of the continent.

We stayed in a beautiful lodge house in Stanford called Standford Valley Guest Farm. We had our own rooms with a porch that overlooked the stunning mountains around us. There was horses in the field and we got the view the full moon rising from our porches. It reminded me that on the start of the tour we stayed in accommodation with a porch looking out over safari animals while this last accommodation looked over the horses and mountains. We had dinner together and then played Una card game for a while. It was a lovely evening with plenty of laughs.En savoir plus