Surfs up at Jeffrey’s Bay and camping at the Tsitsikamma National Park.

14th of July 2018

We had planned to get away by 8.30 but Pauline was in charge of setting the alarm and somehow it didn’t go off! Not to worry it’s not as if we are limited by time! We stopped in at the roadside farm shop where Veronica had bought the Lamb and Mint Pie and bought three more different varieties because the first one was so good. As we were leaving a man came up and started talking to us about our vehicles and trip but then told us that we had to stay the night at a fantastic camp near Storms River in the Tsitsikamma National Park. Sounds good we thought and away we went but first Veronica wanted to have a look at Jeffrey’s Bay which is a beach renowned for its surf waves. It was a beautiful spot and as we had coffee in a cafe right opposite the beach we saw some Dolphins surfing the waves and then further out some whales frolicking in the swell. There was a surf competition “Supertubes” on at one of the beaches there and there were many Aussie female and male surfers represented in it. We arrived at the Tsitsikamma National Park camp site in the late afternoon and camped right on the foreshore in a well maintained park.

The sea was quite big due to several weather fronts rolling through and the surf was fairly pounding on the rocks, making me consider using ear plugs to be able to sleep! I didn’t need them after all I was used to the loud surf noise in Seaspray back in Australia while working down there with Wheelie Good Pizzas. We had only allowed one night here as we were on a mission to get Veronica to Cape Town in time for her to fly out to Italy but after seeing just how beautiful the area was we decided to stay an extra night so that we could do some walks the next day. Late afternoon we decided to walk down to the restaurant/bar about a kilometre from our camp and maybe have a quick drink before getting back before dark. Well that didn’t happen because one drink became several along with two dozen oysters and then a meal and more drinks! We stumbled back to camp by the light of Veronica’s iPhone ! we set the alarm to wake up pre-dawn to get some photos however it was a shocking morning with some strong winds and it basically rained all day so no walks were done. The rain stopped late in the afternoon and we were able to get out of the van just to prevent cabin fever!

The extra day spent here meant we had to do some serious kilometres to get to Cape Town that night and we did this stopping only for coffee mid morning and lunch.

We first went to a camp site attached to a B&B but it was booked out so then went on to the Berg River Resort and again for a big place we were one of only a few campers.

Sometimes I think it’s a great thing traveling in the off season, not having to deal with loads of people everywhere. We demolished another pie this time it was a Venison pie and turned in early. The next morning we dropped the Landcruiser in to the Toyota dealership to have it’s 10,000 km service and to also address an issue we are still having with the DPF sensors. Veronica also set off to leave her truck to have some work done on it before going to the airport to get her flight to Italy. Pauline and I rented a little car, small enough to pick up and put in my pocket so that we could have a look around the Stellenbosch/Franshhoek area which is renowned for it’s superb wine grape growing and also Cape Town.

A piece of trivia for those who don’t live in South Africa is that they call traffic lights “Robots”. So you can imagine my look when asking for directions and the bloke said “go past two robots and turn left”😂😂