A bit of a highlight

18/07/10

Busy, busy, week. We spent last weekend at Addo Elephant Park. While we were there we had 2 nights of semi luxury. Very very cold luxury with the toilet block 50 metres away, but luxury by our standards any way. The weather was terrible. First night cold winds froze us while we determinedly went ahead with our planned braai. It took us 2 hours to get it hot enough to cook anything on. In that time our bbq area got raided by a gennet. Nick had spotted the small wild cat in the bushes behind the braai and went in to get his camera. While he was taking pics of it, amazed that it would come so close, he noticed it was eating some meat. It was only after a few minutes that it clicked that this wasn't just some meat luckily left over from some previous visitors, it was in fact one of our own ostrich burgers. I failed to see the funny side of this. I suppose that's what happens when you leave a bbq unattended in a game park. Shame it wasn't a lion.

Due to the weather, Addo was a bit of a disappointment. Grey skies, cold wind and on and off heavy rain. The animals were hiding and the ones we did see were wet and miserable. We did get a few great elephant encounters, with bull elephants coming really close to the car. There were a couple of scary occasions where they appeared suddenly out of the bush next to you and you got a window full of tusk and huge mass bearing down on you.

After Addo we drove down to Port Elizabeth to visit friends of Nick's family. We got to stay in a warm house with TV, internet, a bathroom right next to our room, and lovely generous hosts Brian and Lucy. They took us out to a restaurant and we had our fill of South Africa’s finest steak. It was a great break from guesthouses and backpackers.

From PE we set off on our big driving day to get us half way back to Cape Town, stopping in the coastal town of Hermanus. As well as a lot of miles, we'd planned to stop and see quite a few places. First we went to Jeffrey's Bay to watch surfers at Supertubes break. It's here that they have the annual Billabong World Tour competition, which was starting in a few days. Guys were setting up stages and film crews were out in boats catching surfers as they practised. It was the first sunny day in a while and there were lots of people watching. As well as getting to see the surfers we had the added bonus of a couple of southern right whales playing not too far behind the break.

From 'J'Bay', we drove on to Bloukrans, site of the world's highest bungy jump. We had stopped both here and Jeffrey's Bay on our way down the coast a few days before, but the weather had stopped all activities. Today we got to see a regular rotation of people throwing themselves off the platform on the underside of the Bloukrans bridge. The bridge spans a deep gouge and the 216 metre bungy drop doesn't go anywhere near to the bottom. The third bounce of a bungy jump here is the height of the majority of other bungy jumps around the world. I’d like to say I was tempted, but the 500 metre cable bridge walk out to the platform would have been more than I could have handled. Nick had done it 10 years ago and couldn't be tempted to do it again. We were happy watching the live feed on TV in the bar, and eating lunch to the sound of distant screams.

After lunch we drove to Knysna where we stopped at a wolf sanctuary. Wolves have been one of my favourite animals for years, and although we visited a sanctuary in Canada, I’ve never had the chance to get close to them. We took a wolf tour and got to play with 2 hybrid wolves before being taken into a large enclosure with a pack of about 10 wolves. The pack was wild, but 2 of the wolves had been hand reared. It was amazing to sit amongst the wolves. Some were friendly, but some were very wary and you're constantly aware of them stalking you from behind, staring at you with deep orange or slate eyes through the trees. Like the cheetahs in Namibia, you can tell the tame wolves from the wild ones just by looking at their eyes.

Having had such a good day, we kept expecting for things to go wrong. We stopped at a mall, and amongst other things we bought a bag of fudge from a stall. After realizing she' short changed us by about 50 pence, the woman was so embarrassed she gave us an extra bag for free. Things like that never happen. To top this, we arrived at The Little Brak Beach House for our first night in a dorm, and the lovely lady owner gave us a free upgrade to an en-suite double with cable TV. The perfect end to an amazing day.