De Oude Pastorie 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 ...

... a whale. Would you believe it there one is, just playing there a little way out, he jumps up and splashes down, then rests a little before doing it again. All that time looking, then just as we are about to leave we see one.

The drive to Swellendam is just as fun as the drive down, miles of perfectly straight road where we see what the car can do, followed by a drive through the mountains, I wish the car was a 1.6 instead of1.4, but these VW's really are nice cars.

Swellendam, Western Cape, South Africa frontal

... was barely noticeable . The water from the springs is bath temperature which is not particularly refreshing but very relaxing. Saturday morning we woke to rain, not very heavy, just a steady shower, enough to consider hunting out the umbrella but not really worth the bother of putting it up. This is the first rain I have seen since arriving in South Africa. It was time to head back home but first we stopped at the weekly craft fair in Montagu , this was ...

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.

... faster than we'd expected, arriving after only a few hours of mountain swtichbacks and two-lane "highway". One of the things I actually loved about driving in South Africa was how incredibly polite everyone was - people would drive onto the shoulder so that you could pass them more easily. This seemed to be completely in keeping with how friendly everyone is - they would go above and beyond anything I'd previously experienced to ...

... breakfast, and Priscilla the Pig - Queen of the Karoo presiding over the Medicine Wheel native garden. Leon, our host directed us to the only restaurant open on the Sunday called A Place in Time. He gave us a bottle of 'A Decent Red' a local wine to take with us (and decent it was). Dinner was eclectic again - a homey, eclectic type of place that appeared as though the hosts were more concerned with food than decoration. We confirmed this by being treated to the best meal we have had so far. 

... of wet laundry all over the back of the bus. The countryside was beautiful as we left the beloved mother city, Cape Town, and drove east. The baz bus is a hop-on-hop-off bus for backpackers that drives you door-to-door between backpackers all over the country. We have bought a ticket between Cape Town and Durban (up the east coast), and we have been stopping every couple of hours in cities and towns, for a day or two before moving on ...

... was really low, so he decided to top up at the nearest place, welllllll dodge it was!! It didn't sell diesel anyway so we wheel spinned off to get out of the place and found a more civilised place. Then we pressed onto Cape Point via a scenic drive hugging the Indian Ocean, passing Muizenberg which I thought looked really cool and laid back, nice place. Cape Point is where the Atlantic and Indian Oceans ...

... may seem good at a time, and then there are ideas that are just ****ing stupid no matter how you look at them. Biking 100 km over african dirt roads after 2 days of rain is a stupid idea. So I did it. And it was miserable. These roads were HORRIBLE. I don't know why they were on the map because I don't even think they were roads, they were more like plowed riverbeds. You know when they had mad cow disease in england and decided to kill all their cattle, they shipped them into ...

... out the hikes by the river which runs by the rest camp. Though the animals are used to people driving through their territory, they are hardly complacent. They were always a great distance from the road. We saw dozens of Bontebok, some Red Hartebeest and a few of the elusive Cape Mountain Zebra. The Bontebok had been close to extinction (we saw enough Bontebok hide rugs on the floors in museum houses to account for it), and the park had been formed to help ...