Sandown Bay

"... All that glitters is not Gold, so I'm told..." but I still really love that place, Arniston!

To weigh up and balance, level things out and to be fair, sadly one needs to be honest about the 'Arniston Campsite'😖 Where the Caravan stood within the park was ideal and the position of the whole campsite, whilst not on the beach can also be understood. Properly grassed with electric points and water taps at each point, fine and well. The ablutions where by far not the best! Would I go back to Arniston... of course I would! Would I camp there again... probably not!

I'm not sure now, if the ceramic glaze on the 1960's 200 × 200 white tiles had already started to disintergeate, or was it because I made use of the toilet🤔🥴

So, there was certainly hot water, and ample facilities and space, and even clean. However, several taps that were replaced did not match each other, some even plastic. Taps not screwed tightly onto the basin, no hot/cold insignia on any taps. Those 1960’s wall tiles (apparently fashionable again now) tiled from head to toe on the walls, were seriously dated with numerous replaced tiles of different shades. As I said earlier, patches where the ceramic is flaking off the tiles, all really making the entire facility ‘tatty’!

By now, having made use of nearly 20 different ablutions over the past 7 weeks, I feel I can consider myself a ‘bathroom fundy’😁👊🏾

We packed up and then walked up and down to the caves, situated at sea level. At low tide early this morning we were able to enter via the seaside, as well as a secret entrance accessed via another water level cove, which I really cannot remember from previous visits? Not only do I sometimes behave like a Caveman, but after all these cave visits, I’m starting to feel like one too! These particular caves conjure up ‘Pirate-like’ scenarios, if not a caveman then maybe even at pirate!?

We sat and walked on the beach for an hour or so, had a swim packed up and headed for Struisbaai and the actual southern tip of Africa, Cape L’Agulhus . Again and on purpose, we dodged the high roads and stuck to the low. Here in the Western Cape, even the dirt-roads are mostly better surfaced than major tar-roads in elsewhere provinces.

Our intention to camp either in Struisbaai or L’Agulhus also turned into a dilemma. We visited both, only 5 or so kilometres apart and both were equally as bad as Arniston, if not worse! Shabby at best, and by now we started to hopefully not, see a trend! Okay, so we have visited the ‘Southern Tip’ for the record, the question now was, what to do? At this point of our itinerary (which also does not exist), we felt we were actually a few days behind, probably even a week! Having seen and visited so many places we planned to and even more we hadn’t and loving every moment, also remembering one of our principles, we made the call to push onto Kleinmond and Karen’s folks!

And so out with the GPS, Google Maps and a real Map Book we decided on our route; Arniston=> Struisbaai=> L’Agulhus=> Bredasdorp=> Caledon=>Kleinmond

En route and by chance we spotted before Caledon a turn-off to Stanford and Hermanus. Having past the off-ramp by a few kilometers, we turned around and headed back. Akkadisberg Pass offloaded us at exactly where we wanted to be, right outside Hermanus and onto Kleinmond.

Surprised and delighted to see our arrival and equally delighted to see them too, we manoeuvred the caravan into a safe corner, had a quick drink and searched for an open restaurant … our usual ‘KabelJou’s, closed! One forgets that a sleepy, coastal, retirement village like Kleinmond out of season, is just that! Back and forth, we settled in at the only open restaurant over the road from the first.

Really good to see the folks again and both looking tiptop! A good place here at Dawie and Sheila’s, to reset and plot the way forward.

Best wishes to you all!

M&K
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