Plettenberg Bay, South Africa

One week later and we are about 400 miles east of Cape Town on the “Garden Route,” a scenic drive through forests and ocean front towns.  We stopped for a night in the whale-watching town of Hermanus.  We did see a few whales’ blowholes off in the distance and enjoyed a great meal in the sunny seaside downtown.  Meandering up the mountainside through ostrich farms, we ended up on a dirt road shepherding sheep with our car (look of fear from Ken: where are you taking me?).  Oudtsthoorn had three highlights: eating ostrich steaks (Nostalgie restaurant), petting lemurs at a conservation park (Cango Wildlife Ranch), and hiking through a magnificent 20 MILLION year old cave system (Cango Caves).

The last few days we’ve been in the high-end beachside resort town of Plettenberg Bay (picture Africa’s Malibu – huge cliff side mansions and very “Carryn-approved” restaurants).  We’re in off-season and we found a stellar two bed condo for $50/night with great beach access.  Everett has been buried alive so many times – the amount of sand in his hair and clothes is next level. 

We hiked the Robberg Reserve, a rocky peninsula, which was much tougher than advertised (look of anguish from Hillary: that was NOT mild!).  The hillsides were covered in the most amazing succulents (reminder: spring here) and the seals entertained us from the coast.  Playing on the beach, Everett practiced and successfully did his first backflip so he re-named it: Backflip Beach.

Online school has been a bit of a slog (surprise we are not great 4th grade teachers), but luckily Ken found some engaging online teachers on Outschool.com, so we are hopeful it will keep our family from imploding. 

 

A few oddities so far:

We stayed at a country lodge and the doorway to our room was so low (5’10”) Ken repeatedly hit his head. By the time we left the owners put up a sign above our door that read “Mind Your Head.”  

 

Every gas station has attendants and we are not allowed to pump our own gas.  They even squeegee the windshield and check oil and tire pressure.  After driving back down the mountain our car was particularly dirty, the attendant washed our ENTIRE car with his squeegee.