Road Trip, South Africa

Before we get too far removed from our time in South Africa I thought I’d share a few highlights from our time driving around the Western Cape. As is typical we opted for the budget rental car, which in this case meant a light blue Chevy Spark Lite. While it’s unlikely we’ll make it our next car, it served us well and is a bit of a natural deterrent to auto theft as I can’t image anyone giving it a second look.

Not just a Spark... a Spark Lite.

After our three nights staying in Cape Town we drove south to explore Cape Peninsula. The drive was amazing, winding above the Atlantic ocean along the western coast, and we really enjoyed our drive and walk around the nature reserve at the bottom of the cape. While we didn’t make it to technical southern tip of Africa, we did at least reach the “The most Southwestern Point”…whatever that means.

Like everyone else, we stood by the language we understood.

We spent a night in Simon’s Town, after which we visited the penguins and then headed up and east to the wine region. We ended up staying in Franschhoek by accident as a couple places we looked in the more well-known town of Stellenbosch were booked, but it ended up working out great. While we weren’t blown away by the wines, the scenery around the entire area is unbelievable and Franschhoek has a great small town feel. Fit my vision of what a town in Napa or Sonoma might have been like 30 years ago, with an even more spectacular backdrop. 

Nice views from Glenwood Winery, Franschhoek

During our time in foodie Franschhoek, we had one dinner out at a fantastic little place with a menu that changes nightly, and opted another night to cook some ostrich bolognaise in the indoor/outdoor kitchen at our guesthouse.

Jess, cooking al fresco

Jason enjoys his ostrich spag bol

Next we headed east along the scenic route 62, which provided as stunning as advertised. While our stay in Oudtshoorn proved only moderately interesting, we can now say we’ve visited the Ostrich Capital of the World and we did get to take a dip in the pool, with the owner’s dog, at our guesthouse.

This guy found us pretty curious, too.

Weather foiled our attempt at driving the scenic Swartberg pass the next morning but we made our own scenic detour and took the Spark Lite for a little semi off-roading on our way back west.

Our last two nights were spent in Montagu – “Where drying fruit is a way of life” - where we stayed at a fantastic little guesthouse at the back of a Brewery/Restaurant. While calling the town sleepy is perhaps an understatement, we really enjoyed the downtime and what felt like home cooking from the transplanted German chef. I did a nice 12km hike on the second day (Jess wasn’t feeling well), which offered some great views of the town and surrounding area and continued the training for Machu Picchu.

The road less traveled

On our last day we managed to squeeze some brandy tasting, which proved an interesting contrast to the wine tastings, and a stop a nearby botanical garden.  

Brandies with a savoury pairing

Our final night was spent in the travel lodge at Cape Town airport in anticipation of our 6:30am flight to Johannesburg and connection to our 12 hour voyage to Hong Kong. All in all we really liked Cape Town and the surrounding area which proved to be much more scenic than anticipated (and often reminiscent of California) as well as a whole lot safer than expected.  Check out the rest of the pictures here – where you can also see some of the entertaining road signs we encountered on our journey!