Head South: spring break part III (de hoop nature reserve)

A few shots from the last leg of our road trip a couple weeks back.

We drove about five hours from Knysna to the De Hoop Nature Reserve, the last hour and a half of which was mostly on dirt roads. We knew we had to get to De Hoop by 6pm, before the park gates close, so we were really sweating as we flew down dirt roads around 5:30pm, not entirely sure where we were in the Afrikaaner farmland.

Lucky folk that we are, we pulled in to the gate at 6:01, signed in, and watched the park ranger shut the gate behind us. We drove down into the valley where the park campsites are situated, and came up on a beautiful display of animals out for their evening graze. We were so excited, of course we had to stop and take pictures. We didn't realize we had the park ranger following us! Thank goodness he was patient, because we got some good shots - and our first picture of a zebra.

De Hoop was a little wild, actually - a troop of baboons ran through camp in the morning, and we heard stories of puffadder snakes (very poisonous) roaming through the camp too. But the food was good, and the views at the ocean over the sand dunes were absolutely incredible. It is billed as one of the best land-based whale-watching sites in the world, and we'd have to agree (not that we're experts). We saw whales everywhere we looked in the water, and they were active! We didn't catch a breach on camera, but we saw quite a lot.

After De Hoop, we drove on to Cape Aghulas, the southernmost point in Africa (not to be confused with Cape Point, near Cape Town, which is the most south-westerly point!). It was kind of cool, but honestly a little windblown and bare. The town was a semi-run down collection of vacation homes, and there weren't a ton of options for eating - we tried to find a coffee in the morning, and drove to a few places before finding one open. We rejoiced, until we realized that coffee they served us was instant!

A rainy day cut short our last day of the trip, so we'll save the Fisherman's Hiking Trail at the Walker Bay Nature Reserve for another day.

View for a few hours of the drive along this beautiful chain of mountains.

First zebra sighting at the De Hoop!

We think it's a bontebok.

We haven't identified these guys yet. They were huge, though! Maybe 8 feet tall.

A baby bontebok

Our campsite was a few hundred feet above this pretty "vlei," or lake. In the morning we walked along it and saw ducks and geese.

Baby ostrich! "Fluff balls"

Bontebok grazing on a sand dune near the water.

Our first view of a whale, basically from the parking lot. This magical place is called Koppie Alleen, and is also the end of a 5-day "Whale Trail" hike along the coast.