The Incredible Case of the Curious Ostrich

31^st May - 3^rd June – Days 244-247 – Western Cape Drive-a-thon part 2 (Oudtshoorn to Cape Town), South Africa

The first leg of this post will be rather poor, given that we fell asleep in the car and spent half of the day snoozing in the car. When we were eventually shaken by the oldies we were in a place called Mossel Bay. We were for a lunch of calamari and various seafoods although it was otherwise an utterly uninspiring and uninteresting town – apologies to anyone from Mossel Bay reading this but it's a fair point. We swiftly moved on.


The idea so far had been to follow the Garden Route and go along the coast when M's mother decided that actually a trip around the Little Karoo would be better. We reached the town of George and turned inland towards Oudtshoorn. The drive was uneventful other than a cigarette break which was unexpectedly interrupted by a curious ostrich poking its head over the fence between the fence and the roadside.

"Who you callin' stupid?"

We drove around Oudtshoorn aimlessly around 3 times before the young'uns took control and we ended up at a B&B by the name of Aan De Brug run by the delightful Marlene, who took us young'uns into a room with the promise that “it's my most romantic room” coupled with a wink and a smile, and her husband Chris who treated us to home made booze of some sort, served from a ram's horn. The romance was slightly broken by the fact that everyone ended up watching South Africa v. Guatemala on TV, but that's how life goes sometimes!


Marlene and Chris had told us about a little loop we could do around a few small towns and the Cango Caves which were apparently fairly groovy. Hence we woke up the next morning and zipped off towards the town of Prins Albert. It was a beautiful drive dotted with hills, small villages and the general emptiness which is so typical of some parts of Africa but hard to find in the areas of the Cape we'd been in so far. We stopped at a waterfall which we'd been promised was nice in the wet season. It was now the dry season, and the waterfall was more of a watertrickle. Still, it was nice to stretch our legs for a bit.

Pre-waterfall anticipation

A trickle indeed

The next stop was Prins Albert, a quaint little town where we did the classic M-and-parents routine of driving around without making any decisions before the young'uns stepped in and ordered the oldies to park and hop into an antique shop/restaurant for a bite to eat and a home made lemonade, and then got back into the car and drove through the mind-blowing Swartberg pass. The driving was slow but the views were amazing and we lapped it up for several hours, eventually emerging at the Cango Caves, ready for a tour of one of the biggest cave systems in South Africa. We parked and walked to the entrance with baited breath. It was closed. We left again.

The best quiche in Prins Albert

The spectacular Swartberg

The return to Oudtshoorn was made via a lodge which was run by Marlene's daughter and her husband and had a sundowner next to a pan and watching hippos and elephants wandering around. Yet again, a moment which made me fear going back to Europe where we would be sitting drinking a beer on the street watching drunkards and streams of traffic. I tried to forget the future and concentrated on what was going on.

All dirt roads lead to Cape Town

Next day, we tried the Cango Caves again and were presented with a choice of the short tour or the extended tour. Unfortunately the extended tour was not recommended for those above a certain age and so us young'uns swallowed our pride and went for the shortened tour, during which we wandered around a cave system previously inhabited by the San people and apparently filled with the largest stalactites in the world. We looked on extremely impressed and snapped pictures like good tourists do. The short tour was indeed short and soon enough we found ourselves blinking in the sunlight and hit route 62 towards Cape Town where the car had to be returned.

How many stalactites does it take to change a light bulb?

A stop in Barrydale was totally unproductive aside from the fact that we managed to eat lunch at place called the Blue Cow, where not only was the food tasty but we also got given bread to feed the ducks before we ate. Barrydale's attractions were soon exhausted (a fairly easy task, given that there were none) and we hit the road towards Worcester where we were to spend the night. The familiar pattern repeated itself and we went to the restaurant where I managed to impress even myself by stuffing down 600g of ribs, before we retired to bed and watched low-grade movies on E-TV. Winner. It transpired that we were just down the road from South Africa's biggest brandy distillery which gives tours followed by free tastings, and what better than a bunch of brandies before heading off on a road trip? We sampled a selection aside from M who was remaining soberish for the drive down to Cape Town.

Even the most hardcore Finn couldn't handle all of this...

Although the vast majority of Finns are well used to this. Even the pillar is asking for a few hours of sunshine, man...

Further confusion followed as we headed back to the “Mother City” intending to pull through Franschhoek and Stellenbosch on the way. We made it to Franschhoek and ate at a delightful restaurant, watching baboons cavorting in the garden and enjoying the sight of a fellow diner who may or may not have overdone the wines before crashing his car into a pillar in the parking lot. Stellenbosch awaited us until M's mum decided that she didn't want to go and preferred to head straight back to Cape Town. As we rolled into Cape Town's minibus-taxi station due to my slightly sub-standard map-reading skills, M managed to navigate us out through several 3-point turns under a shower of “brother, what are you doing here!!” calls from minibus drivers. We pulled into the Flower Street Villas as Table Mountain greeted us draped in her habitual clothing of grey cloud. Our ascent was put off yet again.

Cheers Marlene!!