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By Tom Allin

Yesterday was another birding day but with a different bird guide named Aldo.  Not only was Aldo a great guide but he was willing to talk about anything and everything when it came to South Africa.

A friend dropped him at our place.  To keep the cost down I drove the 4Runner and at the end of the day we left Aldo at his home.  Of course, he had bird feeders and therefore birds in his yard and we picked up one last new bird at his house.

I took no photographs of our birding trip – my mistake.  Like so much of South Africa the area we drove and birded was beautiful.  So, I am going to talk about our birding trip and what we learned from Aldo about South Africa in between photographs of our drive up the Sani Pass and into Lesotho.

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Yesterday was a long drive for us.  We drove from Umngazi River Bungalows & Spa to a guest house in Himeville.  This was 300 km/180 miles or a five hour drive if you make no stops; we stopped.

But this was a worth while drive.  We had two days of birding with guides lined-up, the first guide was to take us up the Sani Pass and into Lesotho and then back and the second bird guide was to show us the birds around Himeville.  The following day we were to make the drive up to and over the Sani Pass, into Lesotho, and find a place to stay.

We arrived at our guest house late in the afternoon.  Our lodging was a guest house inside a gated compound that consisted of a living area with small fireplace, a kitchen, a bedroom and bathroom plus the owner’s home.  Nancy didn’t waste any time in our guest house before asking the owner, “Do you have a heater?”  Her reply was no but she would go next door and borrow one for us.  Even with the heater and two blankets we slept very close to each other.

That evening while I was keeping the fire in the fireplace going Nancy got creative with the food we had in the 4Runner and made dinner.

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Birds in the morning and little animals in the tidal pools along the coast in the afternoon.  The birding tour we had the guide to ourselves but the tidal pool tour we had to share the guide with two other couples.  There are advantages when traveling during the time of a pandemic – fewer people that you must share the guides with.

The De Hoop Reserve has some very large coast sand dunes.

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The Garden Route is probably in the Top Five places known or gone to by tourists in South Africa.  The route is made up of towns, national parks and reserves, hiking trails, rivers, beaches, the ocean, paved highways and roads and dirt tracks, and more.  It begins in Mossel Bay and continues to Tsitsikamma Park and includes the towns of Wilderness (4 nights), Knysna (2 nights) and Storm River Camp (1 night).

We began our stay in Knysna.  The Booking.com I chose was not by far my best lodging choice I have made in the last half dozen years.  Making a quick check of the 60 Airbnb and 40 Booking.com (includes apartments, guest houses and hotels) this is the lowest rating – a 3 out of 10 – that I have given any place we have stayed.  We booked for four nights and left after two.  Not everything goes as well as it is planned in my head.

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We left our Airbnb and drove down the hill to have breakfast at East Head Café.  The café overlooks the ocean and the food was very good.  Good enough that we had breakfast at the café the following day.

We were headed towards Robberg Nature Reserve but first we came to a detour.  The officer explained to us that there was a civil protest ahead blocking the road.  OK, so we drove through the community of Plettenberg Bay.  As we drove by very pretty landscaped houses it didn’t take long to understand why Plettenberg Bay, population of close to 40,000, is consider a resort city.

The Nature Reserve has three different trails of varying lengths: 1) The Gap 2.1km, 2) Witsand 5.5 km and The Point 9.2 km/5.5 miles.  We opted for The Point trail.

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My guess is unless you live in South Africa you don’t know Walker Bay Nature Reserve much less have ever visited here.

I have no recollection as to why I thought this was a good stop but most likely it was noted in Lonely Planet and was on our route to our next stop, Cape Auglhas.  One of the advantages of our slow travel is we can stop when and where we want to, and Walker Bay Nature Reserve was a great stop to stretch the legs.

But first things first, we had to leave Hermanus.  We were up and on the road before ten, heck it may have been by 9:00 am.  I don’t keep track of our time on the road but I know we got off at a reasonable time for us.

We left the hotel and headed towards Rotary Way for its view.

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We left the Porter Botanical Gardens late in the afternoon but I knew we had a relatively short drive to Hermanus and I had already selected a place to stay.  Google maps took us straight to the B & B I had selected the night before.  Drove up to the gate and went to the entrance speaker and spoke, then spoke again and again.  OK, I will use my phone and call – no answer.

The sun is beginning to set, in a new town for us, no place to stay – situation almost normal.

A couple blocks back from the B & B we are sitting in front of with the locked gate I saw a sign advertising a hotel.  Back to the sign, put the name of the hotel in Google maps, hit directions and we are on our way.

This was a situation that began semi-badly and ended up GREAT.  The 7 on Marine Hotel is one of our favorite hotels in all our travels.  We had the place to ourselves (thank you Covid) the next day after the only other guests checked out and what a beautiful place it is.

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After watching the penguins for an hour or more we drove five minutes to the Harold Nixon Porter Botanical Gardens.  As noted before our timing was off.  It is the middle of winter not the spring flower blooming season.  However, this botanical garden was still a great visit.

We then decided to walk or at least for us it was more of a hike up into the higher reaches of the gardens.  We spent about three hours hiking up and then back down to the formal gardens.  We slept well and long that night and the next morning.

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Our next stop was Stoney Point Reserve home of African Penguins.

I am going to catch everyone up as to how we got to Cape Nature after last writing about De Hoop Nature Reserve.

While we were having a great time at the De Hoop Nature Reserve my phone rang.  The call we had been waiting for since leaving Morocco.  “Your car will be ready to pick-up on 3 June.” Yes!!! Yes!!! Yes!!!

We left De Hoop and drove back to Cape Town.  I had made a hotel reservation in the Gardens area based on a recommendation from Hilleary.  We arrived, checked-in, I walked to a nearby bank and picked up the necessary cash, and let our shipping agent know we would pick up the 4Runner the next morning.  We picked up the 4Runner and immediately found a gas station – 4Runner’s gas tank was on empty and spare gas containers were empty because of international shipping regulations. 

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Yesterday was a rest day.  We were both worn out after our incredible breakfast provided by Ashbourne Boutique Guest House – eating dish after dish takes a lot of work.  As a matter of fact, other than read and nap the only other thing we did all day was eat two more meals.

Today we are smarter.  No, we didn’t eat less at breakfast but we did take a wine walking tour.

Tim, the owner of our hotel, took the time to map out what he thought was a walk we would enjoy and marked what he thought were the best wineries to stop and explore.  

The hotel’s entire staff was incredible and I am guessing because they took their cues from Tim.  Tim provided information on about ten local restaurants, made dinner reservations for us, provided driving directions, a history of Franschhoek and the background on how his family and he had moved from Germany to South Africa six years earlier.

It was a four-block walk from the hotel to the main two-lane highway.  Running parallel to the highway but about 20 feet nearer the open fields was a six foot or more wide sidewalk.  Even with the Covid keeping people home, the sidewalk had a number of walkers like ourselves.

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