July 1st (Happy Canada Day!) and another 4 hour drive brought us to Crawfords Beach in Chintsa in the Eastern Cape and on what is called the “Wild Coast”. The beach is long and pristine and is backed by large vegetated sand dunes. Fisherman cast their bait from the shoreline, wales breached in the distance and dolphins splashed in the nearby waves and the monkey thieves roamed from room to room looking for unprotected loot. We spent our second day walking the beach and today working on the blog since a front moved in and unloaded some very much needed rain onto the area.
We departed Port Elizabeth on the 29th for a short 1 hour drive to Addo. There was nothing special in Port Elizabeth and the weather was cold and windy and it was a stop to break up the long drive to Addo from Knysna.
The weather was beautiful on our arrival so we figured we would take advantage and do an afternoon safari in Addo Elephant National Park. The park is the third largest in South Africa after Kruger NP and Kgalagadi NP which we will be visiting as well. There are more than 600 elephants, 400 Cape buffaloes, over 48 endangered black rhinos, as well as a variety of antelope species in the park. Transvaal lion and spotted hyena have also been reintroduced into the area although we didn’t see any lion or rhino during our safari. The park is also home to the largest remaining population of the flightless dung beetle. We got lucky and encountered warthogs, zebra, kudu, jackel and hyenas but the highlite was a very close encounter with a herd of elephants containing several youngsters and bulls.
Today we drove a short distance out of Knysna to Plettenberg to visit the largest free flight aviary and sanctuary in the world containing over 3,500 birds comprising 200 species and covering over 2.3 hectares of indigenous forest and streams covered by a huge canopy of netting of up to 180 feet above ground level. This is a true sanctuary where all of the inhabitants have been rescued from some form of confinement and now live freely in this huge sanctuary. The sanctuary was honored with the Skal International Sustainable Tourism Award as well as the Gold Award in World Responsible Tourism Award in the category of “Best Animal Welfare Initiative”. We could have spent the whole day in this incredible setting and almost did but we had to move on to our next stop. Jan, we thought about you and you would have loved this.
Timneh Grey Parrot
Bearded Barbet
Knysna Lourie
Golden Pheasant
Mandarin Duck
Cattle Egret
Blue Crane
Lesser Jardine Parrot
Purple Glossy Starling
Next stop and next door was Monkeyland, the worlds first free roaming multi-specie primate sanctuary. The area encompasses over 12 hectares of indigenous forest and is home to 11 types of species that have been previously been kept in cages, zoos, as pets or in laboratories and have now been re acclimated to a larger and free moving environment. As with the Bird Sanctuary Monkeyland has been awarded with several prestigious animal welfare awards. We walked about 1.2 km of forest paths with a professional guide who helped to spot and identify the different species of Monkeys.
Yesterday the 26th we drove 150 km to Cango Caves, the most surreal, awe-inspiring example of natural art at it’s finest. Located in Precambrian limestone at the foothills of the Swartberg range, the principal cave is one of the countries finest, best known, and most popular tourist caves and although the extensive system of tunnels and chambers go on for more than 4 km, only about a quarter of this is open to visitors and you can only explore the caves in groups and supervised by a guide. We had 12 people in our group which was perfect. The caves were used by the San/Bushmen and cave paintings and artifacts indicate that the caves were in use throughout prehistory over a long period over the Middle and Later Stone Ages. Words can’t describe the interior of the caves. Hopefully our photos will do it justice.
After four attempts to cage dive with the great whites we headed out from Hermanus to Gansbaai at 5:00 am and 0 C temperature anticipating the great adventure. Joyce was nervous but determined to face the rough seas and the face of the “Jaws” of the sea. After our briefing and a small snack (importance to be explained shortly) we headed out on giant rolling seas on a 15 minute ride on a 12 metre dive boat towards Dyers Island which is very near to Shark Alley, well known for the 90% of Great White documentaries filmed in the world. We set anchor near three other boats, about 1km offshore from the island, chummed the waters and waited in high anticipation. And waited, and waited while several of the younger crowd, who happened to eat a big breakfast (told you we would get to this) proceeded to turn green and puke over the side of the boat. Once the scrambled eggs and toast was wiped away we lifted anchor. None of the boats nearby who arrived earlier had seen anything yet so the skipper figured we should try another spot. We motored a little further while watching a few more landlubbers retch over boatside and then re-anchored. And we waited and waited, puke smell permeating the fresh salty air.
Our great adventure was not to be. Five swashbucklers were picked up by the “sea-sick rescue boat” and about an hour later we headed back to shore heartened by the knowledge we would receive a coupon good for two years to use when we made our return to South Africa. Wow, what a deal! We’ll be back!
Knysna is a small town on the coast of the Eastern Cape and was well known for a huge variety of hiking trails in the region. Unfortunately two weeks before our arrival the area was hit with one of the largest forest fires in over 100 years, the result of an over year-long drought. 8 people died and over 800 homes, lodges and businesses were destroyed. Our lodge amazingly was spared but all around it were burnt out remnants of homes and other lodges. Needless to say, the hiking in the area has been devastated.
The town has two main touristy areas, the Waterfront and Thesan Island, both dotted with nice restaurants, curio shops and bars.
