Because YES, it is winter here. It was quite an eventful holiday with a fair amount of travel so I will try and post a picture or two that highlights each place I traveled with the fam. We started out in PE where I live, which gave my family some time to get over jetlag and relax a bit before we start the bigger travels. There's not much to do here, so our weekend was filled with eating at some of the good restaurants we've found here, exploring a music festival on Stanley Street, and going to South Africa vs. England rugby match.
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| All green for the Springboks! |
After the weekend here, we began our drive down the Garden Route. This drive is known to be one of the most scenic in South Africa, and has lots of great little towns to stop at along the way. Our first stop was Tsitsikamma (where Andrew and I traveled a few weekends back), where we did 2 short hikes along the coast. We continued the drive to Knsyna where we spent our first night. We had great seafood on the water front and spent the next day exploring the Knysna Heads.
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| Knysna heads |
Then we were off to Mossel Bay, another quiet beach town just a couple hours further down the Garden Route. We stayed at a B&B with and incredible view and enjoyed another great dinner on the water. Unfortunately we didn't get to spend too much time in Mossel Bay before we were off to Cape Town!
The next 3 days were spent in Cape Town. We hit up a lot of the touristy things including Table Mountain, the V&A Waterfront, Cape penguins, and Cape Point/Cape of Good Hope. I enjoyed getting to see all the well-known places, but we all agreed we'd like to have more time to just explore the city and some of the cuter neighborhoods. What I did get to do, however, that I was SO stoked about was have a hamburger and milkshake at the Royale Eatery on Long Street. They had fantastic burgers and ice cream (two things that, on average, seem to be prepared entirely differently in this country). So I was a happy girl that day. We loved Cape Town and I am definitely ready to plan a trip back to see more!
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| Cape Town from the base of Table Mountain |
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| Table Mountain from Cape Town |
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| Wine tasting |
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| The girls at a windy Cape Point |
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| Cape of Good Hope |
Then we were off to Joburg for the afternoon where we stumbled across a very similar music festival to the one we went to in PE and explored some cute areas (after about an hour of driving in circles through central Johannesburg because of a broken GPS). And then we were off to Kruger! Every part of this trip was incredible, but this may have been the best part. We stayed at a lodge called Londolozi in Sabi Sands, a private game reserve in the southernmost part of Kruger National Park. The lodge was exquisite, the staff was phenomenal, and you can see for yourself below what the game drives were like...
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| Baby elephant trying to learn to eat with its trunk |
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| Our Londolozi crew |
I couldn't rave about this part of the trip enough! SAVE YOUR MONEY AND GO HERE!
After the fam departed, I was back to PE for one more week of holiday before school. It was mostly spent relaxing and cooking with Andrew, but I did have a few last adventures. The weekend after I arrived home, Andrew and I went to the Grahamstown Arts Festival, which is the national art festival here. We saw a few shows and walked around the tents full of jewelry, crafts, and clothing. It's an 11 day festival, but I felt like I got a good taste in the day we spent there.
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| Andrew and I :) |
The last weekend of the holiday was spent back in Knysna. Andrew and I, along with 6 other of our friends, traveled to Knsyna to run the Forest Half Marathon.. or that was the plan. Until the largest rain/wind storm imaginable hit the SA coast and flooded most coastal cities, resulting in a cancelled race. As it turned out, not only was the race cancelled, but the road to the house we rented flooded while we were out to lunch, forcing us to leave the cars, be transported back to the house, pack our stuff, and wade out!
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| Wading... I hope this makes you Americans appreciate your summer right now! |
It turned into one adventurous weekend and we had quite a jol (good time) regardless! After about 2 months of holiday, its back to the working world. We've got a lot of work and a lot of travel planned for the upcoming months. Will be busy, but I'm looking forward to it. Work hard, play hard :)
