Travel Diary: South Africa – Western Cape

We only had one date committed too upon our arrival in the Western Cape and that was to be in Cape Town around about the 20 March, in order to celebrate Jan & Nicoles joint 50th birthdays.  The celebration was meant to be in 2020 and was the reason we arrived back in Cape Town last year when we did, sadly Covid put paid to that celebration as we got locked down on Nicoles birthday.  So one year later they were flying in to Cape Town for a belated celebration. 

With the above in mind we decided to skip around the Cape peninsula when leaving Cape Agulhus and Bredasdrop (end of our last blog post) and instead go inland for some time in the Cape Winelands, Cederberg and Swartland regions before heading up the West Coast. 

The first stop was to be just outside Worcester at a spot on the Breede River and our introduction to what seems to be a common theme in the Western Cape:  busy weekend camping spots squashed between a working farm and a river. With campers crammed in across approximately 80 plots along the river it didn’t take long before the accountant amongst us calculated that the farmer probably makes more money from weekend camping and chalet hire than growing apples!

Once the weekend crowds disappeared we enjoyed a very peaceful few days and even got the SUP out for a long overdue paddle.

Continuing northwards our route took us into Prince Alfred Hamlet and up the Gydo pass onto the Koue Bokkeveld (cold buck shrubland), a pass we had last been on back in 2013 when we took our motorbike down to the Cape to view the springtime Namaqua flowers.  Then it had been so cold that we had lost feeling in our fingers and toes while riding which made descending the pass on a motorbike an interesting experience, this time around we had the total opposite experience with very hot temperatures and having to slowly climb the pass while monitoring the coolant temp on Mr Jones. 

With soaring temperatures, the afternoon turned into a bit of a mission as the first farm and campsite we stopped at had nobody in attendance and didn’t look too appealing so we travelled further along, only to find that the next spot was fully booked. After a few phone calls we found a spot in the Cederberg mountains but that meant a 2 hour drive still.  At the same time we were trying to help Devon with some CV advice and so had pulled over under the shade of a tree (back at the entrance to the first farm) in order to conduct a video call with him, when the super friendly farmer come driving down the road and stopped to see if we needed assistance.  Needless to say we ended up back on the first farm (Schoongezicht) and enjoyed a lovely night camped very close to a spectacular natural rock pool. Unfortunately they were fully booked for the weekend and so in the morning we moved on towards the Cederberg but not before the farmer had bestowed us with gifts of watermelon, spanspek and tomatoes!

The approach into the Cederberg from the Tankwa Karoo side is absolutely spectacular with big windy dirt passes, although Mr Jones wasn’t that happy with the high ambient temperatures and so halfway up one of the passes we had to stop and idle for a bit while we waited for his coolant temperature to drop down to an acceptable level before carrying on.

After a night at Cederberg Oasis we moved on to the campsite at Sanddrift and were fortunate to get the last available site (it was the weekend again).  Sanddrift campsite is perfectly placed below the spectacular Wolfberg cracks and Arch if you want to do some hikes, but with the summer temps in the mid 30’s (centigrade) we opted rather for lazy afternoons in the river and wine tastings at the nearby Cederberg wines.  

The icing on the cake at the end of the weekend was some divine carrot cake for Sunday morning coffee from the neighbours with whom we had shared our watermelon with the previous afternoon. 

Our original thoughts had been to head across to the West Coast and then up to the Namaqua National Park where we had spent a few lovely days last year on our way down from Namibia (Travel Diary: South Africa’s West Coast) but with the weather forecast showing quite mild temps and lots of wind we instead decided to spend a few days at “The Baths” just outside Citrusdal.  This meant we had finally come full circle as this was to be our first “repeat” stay of the entire time we have been in South Africa, we even landed up on the same site as we had been on 1 year ago!

After 4 days of soaking up the warm hot spring waters it was time to move as the weekend was upon us which meant no vacancy in the inn again for travellers like us who don’t plan and book ahead.  In the Cederberg we had chatted with a biker who had mentioned that the only spot on the West Coast to have any kind of decent swell at this time of the year is Lamberts Bay so with the winds having died down we headed across there for the weekend and hopefully some surf time for Stuart.  What we didn’t know is that the water temperature at Lamberts Bay is a particularly chilly 14 deg C which is enough to give you an ice cream headache just by dipping your toe in the water. With his full wetsuit on Stuart did manage two very brief sessions over the weekend but was also very quick to assure Tania that there was no risk of us getting marooned for a month like had happened on the Wild Coast over December.

The campsite at Lamberts Bay is right on the edge of town which meant it was easy for us to wander in and enjoy a bite to eat for lunch, partake in a wine tasting (at which we also got some serious over-sharing of insights into small town life) and visit bird island with it’s thousands of nesting Blue Eyed Cape Gannets. 

Tania’s sister, Samantha, had hinted she would like to come out and join us for a weekend and so from Lamberts Bay we turned south again and headed down to Paternoster/Tietesbaai with a quick overnight stop in St Helena Bay and a dusty fenced compound known as Midwest caravan park. 

Upon our arrival at Tietesbaai we had been informed that while we could camp anywhere we liked during the week we would have to move to the overflow area for the weekend as they had a large number of bookings.  We found this a bit strange as it is off-grid and fairly basic so not going to appeal to your average weekender, our confusion deepened the following morning when chatting to some other campers who had been there over the previous weekend and not experienced any large influx of campers so in our minds why should the coming weekend be any different.  Our curiosity and confusion continued throughout the next couple of days as we watched workers carefully demarcating sites and placing tape to cordon off certain areas.  In the mean time we received a healthy dose of inspiration and proof that age is only a number with the arrival of Ursula, an older single lady who recently acquired a Toyota Landcruiser with a similar roof conversion to Mr Jones and is planning on driving it up to Uganda in the coming year, on her own!

By Thursday afternoon a steady inflow of vehicles had begun and we soon learnt that Tietiesbaai has for the past 11 years, on the last weekend of February, hosted the Jazz on the Rocks festival, unfortunately Covid stopped it this year but many of the festival goers come through nonetheless for a weekend away, just without the performing artists.  

In the mean time Samantha arrived on Friday afternoon and thus becomes Mr Jones first guest since we have been on the road and hopefully not his last.

It had been a number of weeks since being able to do a proper load of laundry so the first order of business on Monday morning was to find a laundromat, having packed up we said a fond farewell to Tietesbaai and headed into town.  As the area is a popular weekend destination it also meant the laundry service was quite busy with B&B business and so would only be able to get our clothes and bedding back to us the next day.  This meant a return trip to Tietesbaai for one more night while we waited on our laundry.

Having by now decided not to head up to the Namaqua park area but with time on our hands until we needed to be in Cape Town we began to struggle to find attractive places to stay, all too many options seemed to be a caravan park laid in a straight line along a river on a working farm with not much to do. After collecting our laundry we ended up just outside Piketberg at a spot called Klein Paradys (ironically in English = small paradise) which was exactly what we had been trying to avoid – a long line of caravan sites under shade awnings overlooking a river on a working  grape farm. When they would only accept a two night booking (even during the week) we shrugged our shoulders and made the most of a paved campsite  and artificial shade to conduct a spring clean on Mr J.

After our two nights at Klein Paradys we once again got caught out by the weekend exodus of the mother city residents (and every other small town around it) so we ended up backtracking towards Citrusdal and a spot called Piekenierskloof and one day later to another spot only 15km away called Koningskop. Thankfully at Koningskop we get a spot at the far end of the campsite and so got too enjoy relative peace for the weekend. Only to be disturbed when half a tree come crashing down at 1am, and the subsequent screams, onto a tent in the more congested section. The occupants were incredibly lucky and escaped with only a few cuts which was hard to believe when in daylight you could see the size of  the tree.

As a break to our long journey between the above two spots we stopped at the Piekeneerskloof farm stall and did a wine tasting of the wines of the some name. Apart from some nice wine we, for the first time in a longtime, found some awesome design inspiration for a future home in the tasting room and even more impressively Stuart ate olives as they paired well with the wine (he eats pretty much everything except olives and brussel sprouts). Could this indicate that Tania will soon have to share?

Hoping for more of a nature experience we headed around the mountains to a Cape Nature site called Tweede Tol.  In English this means second toll and was the location for a toll booth in days gone by on the spectacular Bains kloof pass (Bains Kloof details and history). The setting is spectacular but unfortunately the local baboon troop appears to be a problem and so we only stayed one night.  While we were away from the car at one of the spectacular swimming holes, they climbed on the roof of Mr Jones and ripped open a few existing tears on the surfboard bag and later when we were home even jumped on the awning. Naughty vervet monkeys are one thing to deal with but large cheeky baboons are a whole different ballgame as they are much bigger, aggressive and therefore potentially dangerous.

Leaving Tweede Tol we ended up having a long roundabout day as we went from one “riverside campsite on a working farm” to another with none appealing to us and then on to a campsite which has sadly closed down, to finally end up outside Hermanus at a caravan park full of silverbacks.  Sometimes not booking or having a pre-determined route/plan lets us down.  Later that week an unusual cold front (for this time of year) hit the Cape and we got to experience a taste of what Patagonia might be like when the wind speed got to in excess of 80km/h, it certainly made cooking inside a challenge and even sleeping that night was not easy.  It was by far the windiest night we have spent in Mr Jones so far.  At least on the second night of cold windy conditions we could enjoy a good bottle of wine while hunkered down inside thanks to an afternoon wine tasting at HermanusPietersfontein, just up the road from the campsite.

The world can be a really small place some days, we have mentioned bumping into the couple (Vivian & Hanlie) who have a Landrover just like Mr Jones in South America while in the Drakensberg in September 2020 and then only a few weeks later meeting Hanlie’s sister in a campsite in the Waterberg.  In addition we bumped into their son while on the wild coast in December so it was with some amazement that they drove into the campsite one afternoon and we bumped into each again. A lovely evening followed of swopping stories, ideas about layout for the vehicles and South America travel advice. 

While the campsite was nothing to write home about, we opted to stay the whole week, partly because we had made plans to meet friends on the Sunday in Grabouw (about 50km away) and partly because we weren’t aware of anything better in the area. On Saturday we headed in to Hermanus hoping to have a late tapas style lunch at Fichs pool, a spot Tania had found on the internet which looked really funky as it sat on the cliff edge above a tiny bay of aquamarine sea. It unfortunately lacked soul and was filled with too many people wearing button up linen shirts, white shorts and Panama hats for our liking and so we decided to skip that and see what else we could find.  A little bit further along we come across a a great little courtyard restaurant with live music, good food and surrounded by funky art galleries, exactly our kind of place.

As mentioned earlier we had hung around in the area because we had made plans to meet up with our old friends from Johannesburg, Denver & Corrine,  in Grabouw.  Grabouw was the chosen destination as their son Wade was swimming in an open water event. A lovely day ensued, firstly watching Wade kick some serious butt and then socialising with Denver, Corrine and some of the other parents from the swimming crew.  We had thought we would only spend a few hours there but ended up leaving around 5pm for a late dash over the mountains down into Franschhoek and onwards to Cape Town.  After 51 weeks we arrived back at Samantha’s house ready to spend a week and celebrate some belated 50th birthdays.

Along with this chapter, we have two Captain(s) log entries, covering  February 2021 and March 2021 in which we attempt to record some of the emotions we experience through the trip.

Maintenance Log: For those interested in technical things, our running record of repairs and maintenance both to Mr Jones and the equipment we carry along with him.

And finally if you have enjoyed this little “chapter of our life” and aren’t yet subscribed to the blog head on over to the Welcome page and complete the form to subscribe, we promise not to bombard you with too many posts, just the occasional rambling. Thanks, Stuart & Tania