15/01/19 We had to be ready to leave at 6am. So we all had our luggage in the hallway on time but no sign of our tour guide, Chris. Someone went knocking on his door and actually woke him up! What a good start… I could have slept a bit longer! I hope it is just a one off thing or that will make me angry. He said he put the alarm on but he is taking some drugs for his stomach that seems to make him sleepy so he didn’t hear the alarm.
A giant yellow truck was waiting for us outside, it looks like we will have it all to ourselves as there are only 3 of us and the guide and the driver so we can store our luggage with us, not in the dirty and smelly storage under. Yay! Let’s start the garden route!
On the first leg we saw sheep, ostriches, cows and zebras. We stopped for lunch and made our own wraps as we have everything on board the truck.
There is an opportunity to do bungy jumping on the way, but the weather is not that great which means visibility is not ideal and I am worried that my wound might be too fragile to get ropes around my ankles so I decided not to do it. I might do it with a friend in the future and share the experience.
We arrived at our first camping site Tube n’ Axe in Tsitsikamma and built our tents. I haven’t done that in decades but these ones are not hard at all once you know the order of the steps to get it right #proud.
There are a bit stinky but relatively clean. Previous travellers also left 2 mats on the truck that I can use to get some extra comfort. I am finally using my sleeping bag for its real purpose 🙂 (did I mentioned I have been carrying it for 9 months and barely used it ?).
We went for dinner to a local restaurant where I had a nice butter chicken.
16/01/19 Jane and Andrew who are really friendly have a good fitness level (Jane has done an iron man!) so they both have a good hiking rhythm. I joined them for 2 hikes today, from 7.30am to 12pm then 1.45pm to 4pm under the rain after lunch at the only restaurant in Tsitsikamma national park. I let them do the last loop without me as I was getting weaker and didn’t want them to wait for me after each corner.
The morning hike lead us to a nice waterfall next to the ocean and we walked on slippery rocks to reach it. Two birds were drying their wings on a rock nearby and as I tried to video tape them, I slipped, fell, scratched my knees and put a hole in my pants ? #notsoproud.
Today I climbed 157 floors and walked 19.5km, not bad for someone who does not exercise regularly (don’t tell anyone I can’t feel my legs anymore).
We went out for dinner and had a well deserved woodfire pizza, had some time to get to know Andrew and Jane.
17/01/19 Every bit of my body is sore, and as I didn’t sleep very well my recovery from the hike was minimum. We packed our tents and left at 7am. As our clothes were still wet from the rainy hike and there was so much free space on the truck we could hang our clothes on the curtain wires.
We drove through the Addo national park, famous for its hundreds of elephants. But we also saw pumbas, a snake and zebras.
Our camp for one night is 40 min drive away from Addo park and this time we can cook dinner in the camping kitchen. We planned to eat the chicken but it smelt suspicious and had a funny colour so we decided to cook the beef instead. There is a fridge on the truck but it is still hard to keep the same conditions as a fridge at home, not to mention that we reached 36 degrees today. Fresh garlic and ginger have been wrapped together by the previous crew and have rotten in the plastic bag so we will have to use other spices as well.
18/01/19 We left at 7am, drove for 7h, stopped to shop for the next 3 days. We arrived at the camp site ‘Away with the fairies’ in Hogsback. We built up the tents and hiked for 3.5h on the paths recommended by the camp owners.
On the way back, I fell on the sharp rocks and cut my leg (same as the one I damaged in Colombia). The cut is quite deep but it should be alright. We saw 3 waterfalls but as it has been very dry recently, there is not much water.
The camp site has a ‘jaccuzi’ which is an outside bath tub with a view on the valley. We all agreed it would be really nice if the tub was clean ?.
Chris cooked us nice dinner, his famous fries I heard about in the first few days, corn, sausages and a special veggie sauce. I had a drink with Jane and Andrew while Chris was cooking, that night we didn’t have anything to do.
