spring break road trip! part one (tsitsikamma national park)

Jim has already had his first school holiday! For "spring break" last week, we took a road trip up the eastern coast of South Africa to a region called the Garden Route. I tried a little spontaneity, and only planned out the first half of the trip. We had a great time exploring, hiking, camping, whale-watching, and even spent a couple of nights on a houseboat.

Here's the first leg of the trip: the Tsitsikamma (pronounced "tit - see - comma") National Forest. We camped in a national park campsite, and spent our days hiking and seeing the ocean and views. On the first day, we did a hike through the jungle at Nature's Valley. It was a pretty trail, but didn't seem to get a lot of use (we only saw one other person, and it was in the last 30 minutes or so). We felt a little spooked walking under thick canopy of trees, and got especially scared by some eyes we saw under a bush, reflecting out at us. We've been googling "eye shine" to try and figure out what it was - Jim's vote is jaguar, which makes me very glad I didn't let him go poke around and try and take a picture of it.

After a safe end to our hike, we had a happy hour on the beach. The next day we drove over to the other side of the park, to see the Storm's River Mouth, where a big river goes into the ocean.

Then we took a beautiful morning walk on the beach at Nature's Valley before driving on to our houseboat at Knysna, on a big estuary.

Me displaying a leaf from a giant yellowwood tree (I think)

Forest canopy

Top of the hike! Beautiful views. We could see whales spouting from here.

Looking away from the water, back into the Tsitsikamma Mountains. The gorges in the area were incredible - really steep and deep.

A bright and sunny beach for sunset

Jim had a few good finds in the tide pools. This one is a sea anemone (I think)

A tiny starfish!

Next morning, we drove up the mountain pass from the beach and along the road for about 40 minutes to get to Storm's River Mouth.

View over the lagoon at Nature's Valley. Our campsite was just beyond where the small river meets the larger estuary on the right. We enjoyed having coffee on the riverbank each morning.

The rocks at Storm's River Mouth.

Me looking down at the dark river flowing out into the ocean. The river has cut an enormous gorge through the hills. This area has two types of stone: very hard Table Mountain Quartzite, and softer sandstone. The rivers cut through the sandstone sections and create these beautiful gorges that define the landscape.

Looking up the gorge.

The suspension bridge! I felt great about walking on it until I saw the sign giving its history: it had been rebuilt 4 times, and could only support 25 people at once. But we made it across and back with no problems!

A wide-angle lens view up the river gorge.

We took a hike along the coast to a waterfall. Much of the hike was a beautiful ocean view.

We made it to the waterfall! What a beautiful spot, with a waterfall in front of you and the ocean behind.

Drying a few items in the parking lot after a post-hike swim :)

So many great pictures to share!! Back to Nature's Valley; the next morning, we took our coffees down to the water and walked between the lagoon and the ocean. Beautiful!

Jim enjoys his biscuits and coffee. It wasn't til the second morning that we discovered the kitchen, complete with fridge, hotplate, and sink, at the campsite. We had been building fires to cook our dinners and heat our water for coffee!

Jim always manages to get his shorts wet.