{"id":730,"date":"2019-03-29T22:45:30","date_gmt":"2019-03-29T21:45:30","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/zeus.bitvalve.org\/blogs\/headingsouth\/wp\/?p=730"},"modified":"2019-03-29T22:45:30","modified_gmt":"2019-03-29T21:45:30","slug":"the-garden-route-part-i","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/headingsouth.bitvalve.org\/?p=730","title":{"rendered":"The Garden Route – Part I"},"content":{"rendered":"

As the wind in Langebaan went on vacation as well, we decided to defer our kitesurfing lessons to a later point and instead drive up the coast line towards Durban along the so-called Garden Route. Our first stage lead us to the actual southernmost point of Africa, Cape Alghulas, where the Indian and Atlantic Ocean meet. The spot itself, unsurprisingly, is not particularly special (Nature does not care very much about geographical peculiarities) other than a gigantic relief of the African continent and a couple of signs. We spent the night in a waterfront B&B in the city Struisbaai next door. Most notably for this stage, we had driven from the Atlantic Ocean to the Indian Ocean in a single day, a feat that is hard to accomplish anywhere else in the world…<\/p>\n

The next day we continued along the garden route towards the city of George and visited the Bontebok national park on the way. In the park, we saw several Bonteboks (a colorful type of Antelope) as well as Mountain Zebras, massive amounts of gigantic Aloe plants as well as myriads of colorful birds, that were particularly difficult to photograph…<\/p>\n

From George, our path lead us along the Seven Passes Road (might be more aptly called “Shitty Gravel Road”), which offered amazing views over the Outeniqua and Tsitsikamma mountain ranges. At the end of the Seven Passes Road, we reached the city of Knysna surrounded by a system of interconnected freshwater lagoons. From there we drove up the mountains over another bone-rattling gravel road into another National Park where we hiked the Elephants Walk. Unfortunately, there is only one elephant left in the park, which we obviously did not spot on the way. Other than that, the walk lead us to a pristine indigenous forest populated with all kinds of trees we had never seen before. Every now and then, the sounds of baboons or the smell of an alien-like stinkhorn fungus (an egg with red tentacles coming out of it…) filled the air…<\/p>\n

After the hike, we drove further to Plettenbergs Bay where we spend the night in a cozy farm overlooking the ocean, where we met a couple of extremely playful German Shepherd dogs…<\/p>\n

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Da der Wind in Langebaan auch im Urlaub war, beschlossen wir, unseren Kitesurfunterricht auf einen sp\u00e4teren Zeitpunkt zu verschieben und stattdessen die K\u00fcste entlang der sogenannten Garden Route Richtung Durban hinaufzufahren. Unsere erste Etappe f\u00fchrte uns zum eigentlichen s\u00fcdlichsten Punkt Afrikas, dem Kap Alghulas, wo sich der Indische und der Atlantische Ozean treffen. Der Ort selbst ist, wenig \u00fcberraschend, nicht besonders besonders (die Natur k\u00fcmmert sich nicht sehr um geografische Besonderheiten), au\u00dfer einem gigantischen Relief des afrikanischen Kontinents und ein paar Zeichen. Wir \u00fcbernachteten in einem B&B am Wasser in der Stadt Struisbaai nebenan. Vor allem f\u00fcr diese Etappe waren wir an einem einzigen Tag vom Atlantik in den Indischen Ozean gefahren, eine Leistung, die nirgendwo sonst auf der Welt zu erreichen ist…<\/p>\n

Am n\u00e4chsten Tag fuhren wir weiter auf der Gartenroute in Richtung der Stadt George und besuchten unterwegs den Bontebok Nationalpark. Im Park sahen wir mehrere Bonteboks (eine bunte Art von Antilope) sowie Bergzebras, riesige Mengen an riesigen Aloe Pflanzen sowie unz\u00e4hlige farbenfrohe V\u00f6gel, die besonders schwer zu fotografieren waren…<\/p>\n

Von George aus f\u00fchrt uns unser Weg entlang der Seven Passes Road (vielleicht besser “Shitty Gravel Road” genannt), die eine erstaunliche Aussicht auf die Bergketten Outeniqua und Tsitsikamma bot. Am Ende der Seven Passes Road erreichten wir die Stadt Knysna, umgeben von einem System von miteinander verbundenen S\u00fc\u00dfwasserlagunen. Von dort aus fuhren wir \u00fcber eine weitere knochenrasselnde Schotterstra\u00dfe die Berge hinauf in einen anderen Nationalpark, wo wir den Elephants Walk wanderten. Leider gibt es im Park nur noch einen Elefanten, den wir auf dem Weg offensichtlich nicht gesehen haben. Ansonsten f\u00fchrt uns der Weg in einen unber\u00fchrten einheimischen Wald, der mit allen Arten von B\u00e4umen bewachsen ist, die wir noch nie zuvor gesehen hatten. Ab und zu f\u00fcllten die Ger\u00e4usche von Pavianen oder der Geruch eines au\u00dferirdischen Stinkhornpilzes (ein Ei mit roten Tentakeln kam heraus….) die Luft…<\/p>\n

Nach der Wanderung fuhren wir weiter zur Plettenbergs Bay, wo wir die Nacht in einer gem\u00fctlichen Farm mit Blick auf das Meer verbringen, wo wir ein paar extrem verspielte Sch\u00e4ferhunde trafen…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

As the wind in Langebaan went on vacation as well, we decided to defer our kitesurfing lessons to a later point and instead drive up the coast line towards Durban along the so-called Garden Route. Our first stage lead us to the actual southernmost point of Africa, Cape Alghulas, where the Indian and Atlantic Ocean … Continue reading The Garden Route – Part I<\/span> →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":737,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-730","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/headingsouth.bitvalve.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/730","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/headingsouth.bitvalve.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/headingsouth.bitvalve.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/headingsouth.bitvalve.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/headingsouth.bitvalve.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=730"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/headingsouth.bitvalve.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/730\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/headingsouth.bitvalve.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/headingsouth.bitvalve.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=730"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/headingsouth.bitvalve.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=730"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/headingsouth.bitvalve.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=730"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}