Birds of Eden

This was an amazing bird sanctuary that is the largest free flying one in the world! Some pretty choice birds were hanging about...

Golden Pheasant

Blue Parakeet

Toby

Scarlet Ibis

Golden Handed Tamarin

Our first whale sighting

We had a lovely walk around a reserve in Pletenburg. We saw a couple of whales off in the distance rolling around. Inspired us to go on a boat tomorrow. Oh and we saw a dassi, it's closest relative is an elephant! 

More food in Plett

Another amazing meal with amazing views for super cheap. Emily Moon restaurant, it kept getting recommended so we dropped in and it was amazing. 

District 6 museum

These posts are getting all out of order as the four of us contribute. These are photos from the district 6 museum.

The museum was about the process of housing segregation in Cape Town. More depressing shit, but interesting. 

Knysna

First stop on the garden route! Turns out to be quite touristy...

Cango caves

Cango caves were pretty amazing formations but we didn't exactly have them to ourselves...

Robertson

We spent one night in a cute and very religious town called Roberston. It was our refuge from the lighting. The whole town was in a 70s time warp. First place we've been where they said it was safe to walk at night. 

More food... Lunch on route 62

Bourbon street

T and M couldn't really cope with South African portions

Monkeyland!

Our second animal sanctuary is a lot less depressing and is actually awesomely monkey filled. We saw ten species of monkeys and Melissa had a packet of chips stolen by a bold vervet monkey who pretended he was just after Toby's bottle top...

Balmy South African days

Lovely weather has finally arrived,  or rather we've finally reached it.  Need to dig out the shorts and togs and get our African tans on!

We're headed to Plettenberg today and I'm super looking forward to seeing the ocean and possibly even going for a swim. 

Driving Route 62 through the Karoo

We drove from Robertson  to Oudtshoorn today through some pretty cool landscape as well as some very backwater towns and lots of very poor shanty areas.  People seemed to be better off here away from the big cities as their houses are actual house structures (albeit still one or two rooms) as opposed to the cardboard and corrugated iron shantys that we saw outside of Cape  Town. Sad to see so many who are clearly struggling though,  it is definitely a prevalent feature of our trip. As fun and exciting as SA is,  it definitely comes well mixed with a good dose of heartbreak.

We stopped for lunch in some small town that I've forgotten the name of already and ate Karoo lamb, which was ok, but imo was nothing on NZ lamb and certainly nothing on Mahunga lamb.. 

Sorry about these completely average photos,  they were taken either on my phone or tablet - hopefully Zac/Miriam will post better ones later. 

Birds of paradise sanctuary

Our first encounter with a bird sanctuary turned out to be a depressing bird and monkey prison...

This is how they eat ostrich in Oudtshoorn

They set it on fire
after smothering it in alcohol

Cats crossing

 

 

That time, with the lightning

So lightning struck the ground in a field next door to where we were staying in Franschoek yesterday evening.  Zac and Miriam had gone to a wine tasting and Toby and I were at home resting as we still have colds.. M & Z had just come out if the winery next door when a bolt hit the ground between them and us. They said they could see the light burned into their retinas for hours afterwards.  Toby and I only heard the thunder (loudest thing ever!) but i basically ran at Toby in a blind panic of what the fuck was that. Needless to say we were all pretty shaken by it all as well as extremely  adrenalined. The lightning strike  cut power to the block of houses we were in so last night was rather rustic, candles and fireplace. Had a great dinner out and early to bed but today we found out the power was not going to come back on for a few days and the gate was not opening or closing so we left and are now sitting in the sun in a small town called Robertson. This is a photo of the sky after the lightning, you can see red clouds in the dip between the hills - that's the angry nature moving off into the distance. 

The drive between Franschoek and Robertson along the Franschoek pass was stunning. Internet is a bit sparse here so posts on that and all our many wine/coffee/cheese/chocolate tastings to follow in the next few days.. 

Pretty muizenburg houses

View from boat on way back from robben island

Robben island prison

Watching the sun go down on the beach with the twelve apostles in the background

Hand crafted African market

Table mountain

Not much point in going up table mountain with the thick cloud at the top.

In an eco bnb

Just some reading in front of a Nelson Mandela shrine...

At the beach with Dolf

At Camps Bay beach we stumbled across the shoot for Dolf Lundgrens next cinematic masterpiece. 

More food

Went to a cool food market yesterday at the V&A waterfront and ate more delicious food - suprise! Frozen yoghurt with pistachio sauce, mmmm so yum.

Cheese here is super amazing but coffee is super average/ crap, sigh.

Pretty self explanatory

Run from fires man