Pea Green

Our last day in Cape Town was a stunning summers day: really hot with not a breath of wind. Pulling into the carpark at Noordhoek we were confronted by a pea green sea coloured somewhere between mauritius and hawaii. A sincere goodbye from dearest Cape Town being that the water temperature was only 11C!

Any road trip through the Cape demands certain stops and Vic Bay is definitely one. Testing my new fins on a frothmonster (thanks Baza they work!) before heading inland.

Leaving Plett we headed along Route 62, back to Cape Town. R62 twists and winds its way through tones of Karoo nothingness before opening out into tale end of the Cape wine route. We skipped stopping at Montagu or Robertson (which didnt seem particularly interesting), but spent the night at the Du Toits pass.

R62: soul search somewhere between here and nowhere.

A late afternoon beer in a tunnel, seemed to make sense at the time.

Post-Karoo winelands and mountains.

An early start the next day took us on a stroll through the mountains up a deserted (baboons dont count?) gorge for a quick swim before hitting Franschhoek for some wine tasting.

Du Toits kloof is only about 1hr out of Cape Town.

The heat wasnt enough to keep us in this lovely pool for very long.

Fraschhoek about to get even sweeter...

Nothing better than pink champers at 

11am (unless you are the driver), a delicious lunch at Le Petit Ferme and an awesome ending at Vrede en Lust (thanks for the free bottle of wine!). 

We still had itchy feet, so instead of hanging out in Cape Town we turned North up the West Coast and into the Cederberg for a couple of days of nothingness hoping to score waves before moving away from the coast.

 

Not much goes on out here, yet the possibilities seem endless...

Ebay wasnt really on, but it was great to surf some lefts again and relive memories of trips years ago. 

Driving through the Karoo had already blown our mind, but we still werent prepared for what awaited us at Traveller's Rest. Our drive in from Clanwilliam lead us over valleys passes littered with rockfigures and fynbos to our cottage in the middle of a wide open plane, a small damn and nothing else. At night the lack of noise was so intense that every single sound woke us.

Pass up from Clanwilliam.

Even way after the spring flower season the fynbos was incredible!

Our cottage at Travellers Rest... 

...and the solitary view. 

During our time there we walked one of the historic bushmen trails exploring some of the caves, habitats, kraals and hunting grounds of these nomadic people. Fearing too much culture, we quickly headed back and cooked some meat on fire not once considering the possible irony.

One of many bushmen paintings in the area which date back between 1000 and 2000 years, unfortunately deteriating with age and constant weathering.

We also drove out to the old missionary station, Wuppertal. It boggles the mind to think how people ever reached this valley in the first place, but also explains why the town still seems to be living in the previous century. Unfortunately, the veldskoen factory was closed but we could peak through some holes in the windows at the old machinery that was being used.

This endless dirt road running across valleys and over passes eventually brought us quaint Wuppertal and the shoe factory.

Back at our cottage enjoying another mandatory wood braai.

Once back in cape town and surviving that last frigid pea green surf, we returned our faithful rental car after 4 weeks, several thousand kms on the clock, a few kgs of beach sand, karoo and cederberg dust, 1 flat tyre, a cracked windscreen and a floppy fuse box which kept dangling in front of the brake (not so good for stopping!), boarded our plane and flew back to Zurich.

Our 4 weeks in South Africa was incredible, but also seem to be over as soon as it began. Simone and I are back in Zurich today with our bags already packed to leave for Los Angeles tomorrow morning...