Breaside Guest House Swellendam

... rolling valley surrounded by mountains in the distance, were still covered in vineyards: Route 66 claims to be the longest wine route in the world. We needed cash (not as many places take credit cards as we had imagined), and found an ATM in Robertson, a bustling, clean and well kept town.

A quick stop for petrol in the predominantly black township of Ashton, and 20 minutes later we rolled into the deserted but quaint town of Montagu (shops close Saturday afternoon). A quick browse ...

... chicken pie, rice and salad;they said it would be served with mash and pumpkin, but as we are the only ones eating I guess they decided to just do microwaved rice to save time. During dinner, while we a helping Eden to eat her rice a glass gets tipped over, it must be cheap because it smashes to pieces!

After dinner the boy lights a fire in the garden and a few of his friends come over. They smoke a home made hookah pipe which they call bubbly. It has flavored tobacco in and ...

... would now be considered middle class and their life style was surprisingly comfortable and sophisticated in spite of the remoteness of the area. We were fascinated by the floors in the kitchen and pantry which were made of peach pips set into beeswax, apparently an old local method which creates a very hard wearing surface which was as good today as it was when first laid. We spent the next day at the local hot springs whose healing properties are said to ...

We set off for Montagu and Route 62, calling in at the Olympia Cafe in Kalks Bay for a take-out coffee and a quick look at the harbour and the local fish. Then we hit roadworks for 30km.... Finally arrived in Montagu late afternoon, which is a beautiful little village set in a gorge. We found a very nice place to stay, wandered around a bit and then found a very nice place to eat dinner, in the courtyard of a Cape Dutch mansion under a 100-year-old pear tree.

... the Reserve, following the directions of the person who owned our guest house, since there were no signs to direct you otherwise. But after a while on a road clearly meant for 4X4s and not our little sedan, we made it to the Reserve (we learned from someone we met later that we were very lucky to not have gotten a flat tire). We were immediately stunned by how peaceful (yes, the guide books are right) and incredibly stunning the ...

... out an astonishing # of miles of caves. The first portion - accessible to visitors who pay for the 'standard' tour - is impressive enough - though compared to the caves we visited in Northern Thailand, they are presented in a much more commercial way, understandably given the # of visitors. There is another tour though - the 'Adventure' tour for the more intrepid. NOT ME, said I, right from the start. Given my propensity to claustrophobia, this was not an experience I had on my ...

... world. In season (July-October) the Southern Right Whales come pretty close to land so you can just hang out among the cliffs and do some whale watching. So that's exactly what we did for the next few hours. There's a nice park overlooking the ocean where Sora liked to hang out so we let her play for a while and then had lunch on patio, also overlooking the ocean. There's this "Whale Crier" in town who blows a horn ...

We've travelled along the southern coast to a town called Hermanus. It's a quiet little sleepy town that has quite a colonial feel and there are constantly Whales in the bay. On the way down we took a scenic drive past Cape Point (most southerly place in Africa) and along past beaches with penguins on (Vicky wanted to take one home but they were too ...

... get more than a day at most with someone, so if you're gonna hang out with people, you better make it quick. Treating people I've just met as if I've known then forever comes a little weird to me, but once you get into it, it can be really rewarding. People have vibes you know, and you can usually tell pretty quick when your vibes jive. It's like tuning a guitar, which I know all of you do every day; if you try to play the same note on two strings that are slightly out of ...

... the season, partly the rain. Since were were coming back, we decided to get back on the road to the Garden Route. The drive was longer than I expected (about 3 hours to George), and the scenery became quite repetitious. Then suddenly we could see the ocean as we arrived in Mossel Bay, the official start of the garden route. We immediately got lost in town and had to stop at the Tourist Info Center to get a map (and use the bathroom). We were a bit ...