Garden Route

The Garden Route is the trip that I’ve been looking forward to since the beginning of this exchange. On Monday, February 13^th, it finally started. We left from Bishops with the whole exchange group, except the Colombian girls. With the ‘Bokbus’ we were going to travel through the Western and Eastern Cape for the rest of the week. Our first stop was at a penguin beach. Before I came to South-Africa, I didn’t even know that the penguins lived here, but at this beach there were many. We drove to the southernmost part of Africa, Cape Aghulas. We spent about 15 minutes here before moving on to our final destination, the game lodge. We arrived at the game lodge around 5 o’clock and immediately, we went on our first game drive. We were divided among five vehicles that took us around the whole game farm, showing us many animals, including the Big Five. I think I took about 100 pictures on this drive only. The game lodge was beautiful, and it had a nice swimming pool.  After the game drive, we had supper at the restaurant. It was delicious. After supper, we swam and chilled in the swimming pool of the lodge. We were paired up in our own little houses for the night. Elise and I shared a room. The view from the room was beautiful, we could see the whole game farm and beyond.

The next morning, we had another game drive in the morning. We saw elephants, lions and all the animals we had seen the day before. The ranger we had on this drive was less interesting, for he didn’t say much about what we saw and the other ranger stopped at every animal to tell us about it. After the game drive we had breakfast at the restaurant, which was delicious. Then we packed our stuff and went on to our next activity, visiting an ostrich farm. On our way to the farm, we stopped at the reptile reserve, where we could hold snakes and see crocodiles. Our visit to the ostrich farm existed of a short introduction about ostriches, seeing small ostriches and ostrich eggs, and in the end we could ride the ostriches. Our tour guide said that only five out of our group of twelve people could ride the ostriches, which meant that we had to do a lucky draw. I didn’t win. I was so disappointed, because I really wanted to ride the ostrich. Then the tour guide said he could have two more people to ride the ostriches. Again, I lost this draw. Luckily, in the end everyone got the opportunity to ride on the ostrich. It was so much fun. We also got an ostrich ‘hug’ and the boys got an ostrich ‘kiss’. After the ostrich farm, we moved on to visit the Cango Caves. We went on the adventure tour, which took us through the whole cave. We had to climb through small opening in the caves and climb stairs through very narrow spaces. It was a very interesting tour. We learned how the first man who discovered the cave went in with only one candle to light his way. It was very impressing. We spent the night at a backpackers, where we had a typical South-African ‘braai’. We sat at the fire for a while and then played some pool in the bar.

The next day was a very important and exciting day for most of us, because we were going to bungy jump from the world’s highest bungy jump bridge! Before the bungy jump, we went to the coast, where we paddled on the Wilderness lagoon. The view was nice, but the canoeing wasn’t that special, seeing as the water was very quiet and it was only a ten minute tour. We were all very nervous about the bungy jumping, and when we got to the bungy bridge, everyone got even more scared. We looked down into a depth of 216 metres, and realized we had to jump off. After registration and paying, we walked through a corridor under the bridge to the middle. There was loud music on the bridge, which really helped us relax before the jump. I was not that scared anymore when I jumped, and it was AMAZING. The best experience in my life. The bungy jump was definitely the highlight of my exchange so far! After bungy jumping, we went to Storms River Mouth, where we walked through ancient trees to a hanging bridge over the river. It was very windy, and the waves were very high, it was a beautiful view. We spent the night at a nice backpackers in Storms River Village, where we played cards and chatted for the rest of the night, after enjoying a nice braai.

On Thursday morning we went to a nearby forest for a Canopy Gliding Tour. We had a funny tour guide, and the gliding was not very special, after having jumped the world’s highest bungy jump, but the view was lovely. We had lunch at the restaurant and afterwards we drove to a private guest farm to spend our last night there. When we arrived, the sun was shining on the lake, colouring it pink. The cows and horses were out on the fields and the grass was beautifully green. We had a braai at the dining house, which consisted of two tables, each with a candle, and a bar. It was quite a romantic sight. After dinner, we hang out with the whole group at the girls’ house, where we had the fright of our lives later that night when a HUGE spider was found on the ceiling of one of the girls’ rooms. Loud screams and shouts followed, and eventually one of the girls managed to get it out of the house. We slept quite early.

The next morning, we went for a run with a few people and had breakfast afterwards. We packed our stuff and took the bus to Hermanus, a harbour town which is the best place for whale watching. In winter. So we didn’t see any whales. We did see many souvenir shops and markets, and I bought my friends and family some presents. Around 3 o’clock we left Hermanus and went back to Bishops, where we arrived around 5. It was a lovely week, with many new experiences and loads of fun!