The next morning, with the motivation to begin our adventures, we woke up early, packed up the car and headed to the city of Wilderness. It was about this time when we realized that only two of the mixed CDs that were packed along played in one of the vehicles: 60’s pop and techno-mix. Needless to say tunes like “Hang on Sloopy” were floating through our heads ALL weekend. By about the fourth time around the CD served as merely a backup to our voices, since we knew each lyric like the back of our hands. Though it had started raining we decided to take a chance on the weather and rented canoes to paddle through the beautiful Wilderness National Park.
Unfortunately we could only convince two others that this was a brilliant idea. The other half chose instead to hike through the park and meet up with us at our final destination, the waterfall. To our satisfaction, the gloomy weather quickly diminished and revealed blue sky and a scorching sun. After a 40 minute canoe ride we beached our boats, threw our paddles on shore and began the hike towards the falls. The hike was incredibly scenic and felt as if we were travelling through the rain forest with all the low-hanging vines and vast range of flora. The end revealed two stunning waterfalls that we just couldn’t get enough pictures of to do them justice.
Losing track of time, we realized that we were going to have to hustle back to the cars if we were going to make it to our next planned activity before the end of the night. Knowing this, we quickly made it a competition to the finish line. We were like Olympic speed-walkers hiking back down the path, and with our competitive nature we jumped in our canoes and paddled like we had never paddled before. The entire hike+canoe ride was supposed to take an estimated 80 minutes one-way. We, however, proved our superior athletic ability and completed it all in 50 minutes and to top it off, BEAT THE BOYS!
After arriving back at the vehicles, and one minor dead car battery later, we were once again off and this time headed to Monkeyland! In the midst of all our afternoon activity we seemed to have forgotten about lunch and therefore had to test out this side of the world’s fast food options. As we may have mentioned in our previous posts, KFC’s are this country’s Starbucks; one on every street corner. We are happy to report back that the chicken was surprisingly delicious. Onto Monkeyland. Being true to our group’s philosophy of” better late than never,” we arrived with less than 15 minutes until closing time and had to do a little schmoozing to convince them to give us a late tour. This proved to be in our favor as we had the entire Monkey Sanctuary to ourselves. It was like nothing we’d ever seen before. There were over 15 different kinds of free-roaming monkeys swinging over our heads and running through our feet.
Our personal favorite monkey had to be “Lisa” who sported the excellent 80’s poof. She looked as if she had stepped straight out of the Cosby show. (See picture!)
Still on a high from our nature encounters we headed to Hostel number two in Buffalo Bay. It was our favorite of the weekend with the cozy lounge and open fire.
After our indecisive group contemplated what and where to eat for dinner for nearly an hour we finally ended up taking a local recommendation and going to a restaurant down the road. The local entertainment of a one-man karaoke show was quite amusing, and the food wasn’t too bad either. We finished off the night with a few rounds of cards and star gazing on the beach’s unique rock formations.
After a not-so-early morning start and a long deliberation we were once again on the road, this time headed to our most anticipated stop, Bloukran’s Bridge. As you may know, this is the site of world’s highest commercial bungee jump. By the time we had reached the bridge, all of our hearts were in our throats as we mentally prepared for what would most likely be the biggest adrenaline rush any of us had ever experienced. Staring out from the viewing area, many of us questioned our sanity as to why we would want to subject ourselves to the torture of jumping 216 meters.
Fortunately, after much coercing even Kristine had signed the waiver and stepped into the harness. Next came the walk out to the middle of the bridge, which may have been even more terrifying than even the prospect of jumping. It was constructed of diamond mesh, meaning we could see straight through to the bottom with each step we took. When we had finally made it to the middle of the bridge we had one final safety debriefing and anxiously awaited our jumper number to be called. “Jumper 60” was the first to be called, Kristine. The entire group was shocked to know that our most petrified member would be taking the plunge first. As she had her ankles strapped together and the knot tied, we were all hoping she wouldn’t back down. A few tears and encouraging words later there she stood, feet dangling over the edge, arms spread. None of us could believe our eyes as we saw her gracefully drift out of sight, SHE HAD DONE IT.
... and then we waited to see if she was still mentally intact after the fall. To our delight she came up smiling, perhaps out of the relief of surviving, but smiling nonetheless. At this point it was Alex’s turn and she was ready and willing to go. Maybe it was the blaring house music or simply the adrenaline rushing through her veins but as they started the countdown she was ready to go. Her excitement of the jump is evident in her perfect form as she was voted “best in show” by the group.
Maybe it was because our guides didn’t want to let her leave without a scare, or maybe it was because they were a group looking for a laugh, either way, right before getting back to the platform they pretended to “let go” of the harness. To her relief it was all a joke as they chuckled and said “you looked pretty spooked” following. This all seemed much funnier to her when she was once again standing on solid ground. Overall, it was definitely an experience we were glad we didn’t pass up. I mean really, how many people get to claim that they’ve jumped from the world’s largest single-span arched bridge?
With all of us on cloud nine, we headed towards Storm’s River where we would be spending our third and final night. We decided to celebrate with what we called a “fancy dinner”, and after three courses of delicious food and wine, we headed back to our hostel for a heated billiards competition. Alex and Ben are still the defending champions. We finished the night sitting around a fire talking about all the crazy things we managed to do over the three days. Unfortunately, the fire did not warm us enough for our accommodation that night, which consisted of elevated tents behind the hostel. It is hard for us to believe how cold it gets at night here! You would think two girls from Wisconsin would be able to tolerate an African “winter.” Apparently we’re not as tough as we thought we were. We found it necessary to pile on all the clothes we could to keep us warm in the self-estimated 40 degree weather. We fell asleep in our little tent and were lucky enough to wake to a beautiful sunny day.
Our last day was spent on a Canopy tour of the Tsitsikamma forest. We zip-lined from platform to platform, taking in the sights of the forest. Needless to say the “heights” were a breeze after what we had been through the previous day, and it was a relaxing and enjoyable time.
Our last and final stop was at the Tsitsikamma National Park famous for its suspension bridge. It was an incredibly scenic hike with lots of great views of the ocean and surrounding mountains. This was also the location of our now favorite picture of the journey, “the Brady Bunch” photo (see below).
It was also here where we had to say our goodbyes to the other half of our group who was fortunate enough to be able to stay and explore the area until Tuesday. The two of us on the other hand are STILL procrastinating the papers we came back early to write. So the trip ended with a seven hour car ride on the N2 back to Cape Town where we arrived tired and content with fond memories of our weekend away. It definitely left us with a taste for more adventures with our dwindling time. We look forward to many more weekend trips to further explore this beautiful country.
P.S. We really must commend Callie on her great academic efforts this weekend. Despite all of our begging and pleading she honorably turned down the trip in order to tackle her daunting 15+ page paper. Don’t worry though; we’ll never let her get away with this again. She will most certainly be joining us on any and all trips in the future.
Met liefde van Afrika,
Kristine and Alex
*Check out more pictures of our Garden Route adventure at our Shutterfly website!
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