The Garden Route

So the whole reason for coming to South Africa was to drive the Garden Route - it's an 800km drive down the coast of SA to Port Elizabeth. Most people hire a car and then stay in bed and breakfasts along the way in any of the towns along the route. After doing a bit of research we decided on the towns we were going to stay at and our game plan for the next 5 days. Our first stop was Stellenbosch - wine country!!! We spent the afternoon doing winery tours and soaking up the hot, hot heat (it was +37 that day). We managed to visit 4 wineries and everything was incredible - we did a wine tour while in France, but we enjoyed this more, maybe because we were driving and weren't on any sort of schedule except our own. We didn't learn as much about the wine as we did in France, but had a lot of fun (Poor Arnold had to be the DD for me). The next day we were off to Mossel Bay (about 400km from Cape Town) and spent two days there, one of the days there, Arnold had a chance to golf at Pinnacle Point. I'm not much of a golfer and/or seen a lot of courses, but WOW, this course was stunning!! Right along the ocean with some beautiful views. You will have to ask Arnold about his thoughts on the course and how hard it was because I was just there to watch. After Mossel Bay we spent the night in Knysna and toured around the area that next day. And that was the furthest point we made it to on the Garden Route because we had to head back to Cape Town after that. We spent our last night in a small town called Swellendam and are now currently driving back to Cape Town as I write this. The landscape is beautiful and at points so different then Canada and then at other points you feel like your driving through parts of BC/AB and then through parts of Europe. So it's a bit hard to explain, but it was such a great experience and we are so happy that we were talked into it by our hosts in Arusha otherwise we would have missed out on SA and everything that is has to offer.

Love Melissa and Arnold