Miss us? We made it to Cape Town!

Hi Everyone! :)

I promise I have not forgotten about the blog! Rachel and I did not have wifi while traveling the Garden Route on our way to Cape Town. I am happy to say we arrived safely and are slowly finding a balance between getting our rest, and taking advantage of all the wonderful opportunities here.

I am going to blog tomorrow about our first couple days in Cape Town, but first, let me catch you up on our trip getting here. We traveled along the Garden Route, which is a route on the coast of South Africa that highlights some the country's finest sights and activities.

I have provided lots of pictures to help narrate our journey.

This picture is from our last night in Port Elizabeth. We had one last dinner, with all of our wonderful friends, so we could celebrate and say good-bye.

Here we go... our trip to Cape Town....

Our first stop was Storms River- this is Storms River Bridge which is very close to the area that we went bungy jumping

We had a blast hiking a little trail to get to Storms River Mouth which is easiest to spot when you are standing on the suspension bridge that is seen behind us in this picture.

After Storms River Mouth, we continued on and later stopped at this lake. Throughout the trip, we often stopped at interesting or beautiful sights that we found along the way.

The next few pictures are from our second day where we spent our time in Knysna.

Knysna is filled with beautiful sights and we enjoyed exploring the area.

We took a boat ride to see the Knysna Heads which are seen in the picture below.  This is one of the most dangerous areas in South Africa that a ship can enter through, because if they do not aim perfectly, the waves and the wind will overtake the ship. There have been lots of accidents because of this.

More pictures enjoying the sights of Knysna

So here is a little recap: our first day we spent traveling from Port Elizabeth, stopping in Tsitsikamma and Storms River on our way to Knysna. We stayed in Knysna for two nights and then headed to Oudtshoorn which is known for Ostrich breeding. So, we spent some time at one of the Ostrich Farms.

During our "Ostrich Briefing," I was asked to play the role of a female Ostrich while our Ostrich guide demonstrated the call a male makes when he wants to pursue the female. Clearly it was a good laugh...

I didn't really want to hug the ostrich, but you get talked into these things quickly.

The best part of the farm was holding 2 day old baby Ostriches!

Ray hugging the Ostrich :)

They also let us feed the ostriches so that we could get a neck massage from them. 

After the tour of the Farm, we even persuaded our guide to let us play with the babies again. It was by far one of the best parts of the trip

We each bought one to take home with us! Customs here we come

After our Ostrich Extravaganza, We went to the Cango Wildlife Ranch. Here are a few photos worth sharing:

This was super cool

My favorite part of our time at the Ranch, was visiting the cats. The only animals we wanted to see that we had not previously seen during our time in South Africa were leopards and cheetahs.

Here is a cool shot of the cheetah. We learned that you can tell it is a cheetah by the stripes near its nose.

Now this is a leopard. Leopards have spots within their spots and they are much larger cats than the cheetahs.

Here is the cutest baby cheetah! See his little stripes near his nose?

After the Ranch, it was time for the Cango Caves. I would say completing the adventure trail in the Cango Caves is in the running for my favorite activity we have done here. The picture below is a map of the caves. We went all the way through the red part which eventually circles back around. This meant we had to crawl through little crevices, crouch, and climb up some areas. The cave was magnificent. It is hard to believe that it is completely natural. The rocks were slippery which made some of the sliding easier but some of the climbing more difficult.

This is in the yellow part of the cave, before we started the adventure route.

 Our longest day was our traveling day to Hermanus. We were in the car a total of 8 hours. Luckily we had beautiful sights, like the picture below, to keep us entertained.

We also had baboon crossings to keep us wide awake! They are not the prettiest monkeys.

After our long drive, we finally stopped at the Southern most tip of the continent of Africa. It is where the Indian Ocean on the left, and the Atlantic Ocean on the right, meet. It was awesome, and we were happy to stretch our legs!

We stayed the night in Hermanus and woke up bright and early for whale watching! I had learned from my Shark Cage Diving experience to make sure to take some dramamine before heading out to sea. Good thing we did, because it was a three hour excursion!

Gotta love being a mermaid

Our whale sightings were very successful. We saw a number of whales. They are very curious animals, so they often came right up to the boat. This made for some great pictures!

We enjoyed our whale watching experience, but we were exhausted from the sea sickness medicine. Rachel and I both slept through the hour and a half drive to Cape Town. We checked in at our hostel, Atlantic Point Backpackers, and spent the rest of the day unpacking and resting.

This all feels a little surreal. We have been talking about Cape Town for what seems like ages. Now it is here. Cape Town also signifies the end of our South African journey so needless to say, we are trying to soak up every second we have here.

I am looking forward to writing my post tomorrow about our first couple of days here. 

Thanks for all the well wishes this past week!

Love,

Casey :)