Whale watching, Storms River Mouth and Golf – October/November 2011

Sunday 30 October
Farewell to Stellenbosch and our drive to Hermanus. Enjoyed the drive down with great views across False Bay and round Cape Hangklip. Once at Hermanus we tried to book the 3PM whale watching boat trip but all the boats were cancelled due to the large swell. However we immediately saw Southern Right whales from the cliffs. Lots of action including flipper slapping and head stands ( tail out of the water ). Followed a mother and baby who were swimming in the same direction and got some great views of them.

Monday 31 October
We headed out to see at 9am and turned east searching for whales. There was a 4 meter swell and some turbulence due to the wind. Saw a whale after about 40 minutes but it wasn't doing much apart from one breach. All in all a bit of a bust as regards watching whales, we had seen a lot more from the cliffs in town. In the car and heading for Plettenberg Bay just after 11.00. Then on to Plettenberg Bay and our next B&B, Room with a View.

Made it to Knysna about 3.30. Parked and wandered down the waterfront to have a coffee overlooking the harbour.

Then on to Plettenberg Bay and our next B&B, Room with a View.

Tuesday 1st November

Headed off Storms River Mouth buton the way found the Blaukrans Bridge bungy jump on the way (used to have the Guinness record for the world's highest at 216m) 3 guys did it whilst we were there – mad! The oldest guy who has done it was 96, the oldest woman 87!

Storms River mouth was on an impressive piece of coast, big rollers crashing onto rocks to produce some great wave images. Walked out to the viewpoint via the suspension bridge then grabbed some picnic supplies from the shop and headed out on the walk to the Otter trail waterfall. The walk was classed as hard and that become obvious later when we had to scramble over boulders and negotiate some steep slopes.

Wednesday 2 November
A round of golf at the Plettenberg Bay course but no photos – just some views from our B& B, plus the weaver bird nests in the tree beside our terrace

Wine Country - October 2001

 

Friday 28th October
So sad to leave our apartment in Cape Town, but onwards and upwards! First stop Spier (a wine estate) on Claire’s recommendation and went to look at the Cheetah Outreach prgramme – trying to education the public, esp farmers, not to shoot these gorgeous animals. There are only 7500 left in the wild. We then headed on to Franschhoek - nice little town but reminded us of Braemar! Lunch there and then headed for Stellenbosch and our wine tour for the next day.

Saturday 29th October
Willem our wine tour guide picked us up just before 9.30 and we met our fellow passengers - Peter and Paul from London and Martine and Martin from Austria. Went to 6 wineries during the day, Thelema, Rustenberg, Simonsig. lunch at Glen Carlou, wine and cheese at Fairview and finally port and chocolate at Murati.  Back to the hotel about 5.30 after a really brilliant day in great company. Willem was a great host and very informative.