13 July

13 July 2011

We had a fantastic time in the Western Cape with Paul and Penny and it was also good to catch up with Phil and Lindsay, as well as cousin Carol and Charles.  Someone closed the fridge door and the weather has been great, very little wind and wonderful sunshine, temperatures sometimes better than the European summer.  Larry claims to have arranged all the weather!!

Our first trip once we left Somerset West was to Arniston, via Bettys bay, Hermanus, Gans Baai – shark diving capitol -  and Cape Agulhas and a bit of gravel road, mostly good but potholed which we could avoid.  The camp site was completely deserted - we were the only ones camping and when we enquired about the chalets we were told they were not available as they had not been cleaned from the weekend!  This on Monday eve – someone needs to kick someones butt.  It was great to stop for a while, to watch whales lolling just behind the breakers.  Dinner at the Arniston hotel was good! 310 km today.

The next morning we left at mid-morning, heading for Victoria Bay, we got onto the N2 and we realized that is not the way we want to travel.  Lots of traffic and moving fairly quickly.  We headed to Vic Bay and camped at a wonderful camp site overlooking the bay, certainly one of the pettiest campsites for the entire trip.  The weather was so good that there were lots of people swimming, fishing and surfing.  Our tent got very wet with dew and we have battled to keep things dry.  We even enquired on the price of a house on the waters edge – only 9 mill rand – we’ll take a few at that price!! 300km today.

Richard Poole – a flying friend from home -  has just bought a BMW 1200 and will be joining us at Storms River and riding back to PE with us, where we will spend the night in PE and then be back to Grahamstown on Friday, not happy that our trip in so nearly over!!  So today was another short day, only 150 km, all on tar, but along the very scenic Garden Route, making us realize that we have some very pretty places in Sa as well.  Storms River Mouth is one of our favourite places, and we went for a nice walk this afternoon, along the start of the famous Otter Trail.  And cooked our last supper for this trip!!