the garden route
I arrived in Jeffreys Bay at 9am following the short bus ride from Port Elizabeth. Only four people on the bus for the last two legs now, and two of the others have gotten off at the same stops as me. It’s amazing how few backpackers are here now! Jeffreys Bay is a home to a crescent shaped bay and almost continuous beaches running around the bay, it’s also supposed to be one of the top 3 surfing spots on earth (I hear it’s slightly better on Venus though). My hostel was a great chilled place 2 minutes from the beach, this is my view of the surf from the balcony.
The weather was perfect so I grabbed one of the boards from the hostel and went to fulfill the previous days goal. After a couple hours of not the most successful attempts, I dried off and went down to explore the town itself. Not that disimilar to the Australian and NZ surfer towns I’ve visited. There’s lots of surf shops, various sorts of accommodation all over the place with coffee shops and trendy restaurants lining the main street. One of the hostel staff recommended a good and unique seafood restaurant here (this stretch of coastline is known for good seafood) so I tried that for my belated birthday meal since all I managed the day before was a meat pie at a service station on a brief stop on the bus. The restaurant was out of town at the marina, on the beach. No floor, it was a semi permanent building (tarp walls and a solid roof) with an open braai and tables and benches on the sand, a pretty cool way to serve seafood. I had a good sized platter of all the good shellfish, served with freshly made bread and dips all for about $20usd. Now that’s good value for seafood!
I left J-bay the next morning for Knysna, passing seemingly endless amounts of tree farms along the way. Aside from the fact that several South Africans had told me not to miss it, one of the reasons I decided to spend a day here was that they had their own local beer brewery here, making something other than piss poor lager, this is extremely rare in South Africa. Since I’ve looked for, and found good beer in most countries I’ve traveled too (before anyone gets excited I did fail to find good local beer in Taiwan or Korea) I was convinced that there had to be something here, hell even Japan had some good beer. So after I got off the bus and checked into my hostel I went straight into town looking for lunch and a the local beer, found both and the beer, a english bitter variety, didn’t disappoint. I am looking forward to even better beer available everywhere in one week exactly when I arrive in London, South Africa has flown by.
Knysna is built on a tidal lagoon, protected by the costal cliffs, making a very sheltered harbourfront. Since I only had time for a one night stay here I didn’t have a chance to do any of the activities around the areas, just checking out the town, which was what I was motivated to do anyway. It’s safe to walk around, full of shops and cafes and lots of oyster restaurants.
Now that I have had a good beer in South Africa my next stop is Stellenbosch (last stop before Cape Town!) in the heart of the winelands. I went through three different wine regions in Australia and none of them disappointed, so I’m looking forward to touring this one. It’s also been recommended by pretty much every South African I’ve met.
Tags: South Africa, Travel
Adam
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