The last bit of South Africa
So here we are back in South Africa for the final stage of our South Africa tour. The border guard who stamped our passports (but who thankfully didn’t look too hard at the COVID test certificate date) clearly told us that we had 22 days left on our visa, and that overstays were not welcome. So with that in mind we headed off.
First stop was the Wild Coast, which unfortunately was wet, cold, none too wild and generally not what we were looking for, so we moved on. We stopped briefly at Jeffreys Bay, where the surf was flat but the water was blue and warm.
Next stop was the Garden Route which needs no introduction. To be honest, we were slightly underwhelmed by the Garden Route. Yes, it’s beautiful - stunning in fact, with some amazing secenery, buts it’s also quite busy, developed and expensive. Compared to the deserted beaches of northern KwaZulu-Natal I honestly felt a bit disappointed. I guess 20 years ago it would have been amazing, but for me it has suffered from being over marketed, and so perhaps would never be able to live up to the hype.
Cutting our losses, and off the back of some advice from other overlanders, we headed into the Little Karoo where WOW, we found some amazing scenery. Personally, I love deserts. I love the harsh environment, the heat, and the colours. We drove along Route 62 with its quirky towns, and we stayed in a vineyard campsite with grape vines behind us and a lake in front, sampling some of their product and skinny dipping after dark.
We could have stayed for weeks, but we had to leave and head for Cape Town to get the clutch changed on Brenda and give her a bit of TLC. We stayed in the most amazing Airbnb with a grapevine covered veranda and salt water pool, and we thoroughly enjoyed some R&R’ing and a bit of Netflix. The garage changed the clutch, gave Brenda a good service and informed us that there was play on the water pump, but that they wouldn’t have time to fix it – helpful.
With our visas running out our only option was to drive north to Namibia, hoping the water pump wouldn’t let go, and get the work done in Namibia. So here we are, at Springbok near the border on the South Africa side, waiting for our PCR test results to come back, so we can cross the border and head to the garage. The garage has told us that the parts will take a week to be shipped up from South Africa (ironically), so the plans must be changed for now. Also, the handle that opens the back door broke this morning, so we need to figure out how to fix that too….