Our Trip to South Africa (Part 2)

Gaansbaai

The much awaited trip from Hermanus was to the White Shark Projects (Cage Dive) in Gaansbaai. The morning went smoothly with the kids having an extremely light breakfast, followed by some sea-sickness tablets. The drive took us about an hour from the guest house, and we reached there in time for our trip out to sea. The crew carried a load of fish as bait for the sharks. They then set up the cage on one side of the boat, and let the divers in. The bait was thrown into the water closer to the cage, to attract the sharks that would swim close to the divers.

It was an extremely cold morning, and we were not keen to dive or go into the cage. But just the feeling of a close encounter with the great whites was extremely exciting. (See if you can spot the great white in the second picture). The entire trip took us a good 3 hours, and we were brought back to the office where we were served a nice warm Minestrone soup to help thaw ourselves.

From Gaansbaai, we left to Betty's Bay that has far more penguins than Boulder's Beach. We walked on the boardwalk to the edge of the water and saw 1000's of penguins and cormorants. It was raining and was really cold, but the kids were very happy to see penguins in such large numbers. 

We were quite hungry by now, and stopped at On the edge, which is at the parking lot of Betty's Bay. We had a nice warm slice of carrot cake with vanilla ice-cream. Probably the best carrot cake we have had in a long time. We then drove back to the guest house in Hermanus and ordered some dinner from Debonair's Pizza.

The next morning was our longest drive so far, on the garden route and we were heading to the small and open town of Oudtshoorn. This being a cantonment town, there isn't much of a buzz even in the central part of town. We checked-in to the nice Hlangana Lodge and rested for a while and stepped out for some dinner. The town looked extremely quiet, with hardly any street lights. This was the first time in South Africa that we really felt a little scared to be out on our own in the evening. So we stopped at to The Black Swan, that had a lot of cars parked outside, and the place was crowded with live music etc. The food here was good, but the service was a bit slow.

After a night of restful sleep, we set off to see the Cango Caves. It was a cloudy day and the 9:30AM drive up the mountain was right through the clouds; every sharp turn that we were driving towards was covered by the fog and it was spectacular. 

The Cango Caves gave us a great view of the Stalagmites and the Stalactites, and our walk into the caves was part of a one hour tour. There is also a 3-hour tour that would have taken us to the deeper parts of the cave where the entrances are much narrower, but we were not keen to do this. I don't know if the kids would have been ready, but we were quite sure that our unfit bodies would neither be able to make it through those entrances, nor handle the low oxygen levels inside.

On the way back from the caves, we stopped at the Cango Wildlife Ranch. We have been trying to avoid going to zoos and places where animals are kept captive. But this was different; the big cats here are rescued and taken good care of. They are not fit to be left back in the wild, since they are not fully recovered enough to be able to defend themselves or hunt on their own. It is a well maintained place, but it was an expensive ticket for what we got to see. 

From here, we went to the Highgate Ostrich Farm which has a guided tour for 60 minutes by the hour. The guide showed us how eggs are hatched in their nursery, history about the ostrich feather that was once a fashion statement, and took us on a guided tour around the farm. We fed the birds, got to sit on one, also got to stand on two eggs and finally saw a 100ft race by the birds.

From here, we left to Wilderness, a lovely place on the coast. We reached there late afternoon, checked into the most beautiful Dune Guest Lodge, the hostess who has a small baby maintains this villa which looks out to the beach. The view from our room was lovely, since the wall facing the beach was made of glass. We just sat there and enjoyed the view, hoping to catch something interesting in the distance. This is one place we wish we had spent a little more time in. We headed out to dinner to Royal Siam Thai Restaurant, that served us some great food. Since it was the weekend, it was very crowded, so the service was quite slow.

We left early the next morning to catch the Saturday Morning Wild Oats Market. It was so good to be out there and see all the stalls with home made stuff and good food. We spent some time there and drove up the hill to see The Big Tree, the view from the top was really nice. The town of Wilderness and the river winding through it, stretching out from the base of the mountain to the sea.

The small but lively town of Knysna was our next stop but we could not stay there since the hotels were fully booked thanks to the Knysna Oyster Festival that lasts 7 days, and is great fun for sports lovers. But we passed through this little town looking forward to our next few exciting stops. The children couldn't wait....