A South African Vacation

A South African Vacation

As work pressure builds up, stress levels skyrocket and this was happening to both my wife and I. We thus decided to take a short, but well deserved vacation. We decided to go to Plettenberg Bay, which is on the South East coast of South Africa. This forms part of the garden route, which is a well known tourist attraction.

I will show most of the vacation through photos taken with my cellphone. There are much more to do than the few photos, I posted below. We concentrated on the beach areas, there is however also inland places to visit, like forests, old gold mines in the vicinity of Knysna, as well as animal experiences, like wolves, reptiles, birds and elephants to mention a few things to do. You can also go on boat rides, whale watching, fishing or just sight seeing if you would like to do it. As you can see there is a lot to do.

We started our vacation at OR Thambo airport in Johannesburg, in the slow lounge with a slow breakfast and some coffee and juice

After landing at George airport we got our rental car, a Chevy Spark. We traveled the approximately 80 km to our destination in Plettenberg Bay. After off loading our luggage we set off to Moby Dick a nice seafood restaurant right on the beach, where we ordered some drinks and fried fish for lunch. The photo below shows the view from the restaurant.

The next two photos show the view from our self catering unit in two directions.

The next day, after a wonderful relaxing rest, we headed out to Knysna, where we had breakfast at a restaurant at the waterfront, where we saw this sting ray swimming past. (There were quite a few sting rays coming past, which was amazing to see)

Below is a photo of the waterfront harbor. There is a number of restaurants and shops on the waterfront.

After the waterfront we headed out to Lake Brenton and Brenton on sea. Below is a photo of the lake, which was taken at low water. The difference between high and low tide is more than a meter at Spring tide.

Below is a photo of the coast line at Brenton on Sea, this is the same spot where I asked my wife to marry me 7 years ago. The second beach you see in the back ground is approximately 12 km long.

Here is a photo of my wife at the bottom at the beach at Brenton, next to the rock known as Castle rock.

Below is a small octopus that we spotted at the bottom of Castle rock in a small pool in the rocks. Note how clear the water is, you can't even see the water on the photo.

The photo below shows the long beach, mentioned earlier.

Back at Plettenberg Bay we had drinks at the Lookout Beach Bar, also situated right on the beach.

The next day we headed to Keurbooms Beach.

We headed back to Knysna, where we had lunch at Sirocco restaurant on Teasan Island. This used to be a wood processing island, but is now a residential and recreational island.

And some more beers.

A big star fish in the channel next to the restaurant.

After lunch we went to the Heads. This is the two cliffs that surround the entrance of the Knysna Lake into the ocean.

We then spent a day exploring the town of Plettenberg Bay. We stumbled onto this small old Catholic church in town. Look at the graves in the church yard. (This church is very similar to the one in Belvidere although the Belvidere one is much smaller)

The next day we headed to Natures Valley, which is a very small town, where all the houses is in between dense trees, with a very long beach as well. Below is our drinks, just to show that we did not only drink beer and wine.

We then returned to Plettenberg Bay, where I had a long walk on Lookout Beach and we returned to our drinks at the Lookout Beach Bar.

The next morning we went for coffee in a coffee shop in Plettenberg Bay. The small town have so many coffee shops, that I don't think you will be able to visit them all in one day even if you just drink one cup of coffee at each one.

The last evening we went for dinner at the Equinox restaurant, also right on the beach, which serves wonderful food in a very nice setting. The perfect end to a wonderful vacation.

All the above places is within a 50 km radius of Plettenberg Bay (except for the airport). South Africa is a wonderful country with a lot to offer. You should also note that October is Spring in SA, and the weather was already good, with two of the days reaching a high temperature of 26 degrees C.

I hope you enjoyed the story of my vacation as much as I enjoyed the vacation.

PS. I gained 3 kg in 6 days, I could feel it when I hit the gym this evening after work.