Weekend trip along the Garden Route

On Thursday was International Women's Day, so we had the day off. Of course, we had to use that for a little road trip. So we set off along the Garden Route. Our destination for the night was Mossel Bay, but we made a stop in Knysna and drove to the 'Knysna Heads' there.

Then we continued to Mossel Bay, where we arrived in the early evening, just cooked in the hostel and then fell into bed. It is still quite cold here in the evening and there are never heaters in the hostels, so you always have to sleep wrapped up warmly.

The next morning, unfortunately, the weather was a bit worse, rainy and cold. But since our destination for the day was Oudtshoorn with the Cango Caves, that was not a major problem. Some of us did the Adventure Tour, where you really go deep inside and squeeze through narrow gaps. Since I had already done this tour during my last stay in South Africa, I did the Normal tour with the two girls who didn't want to do the Adventure Tour. Our guide sang twice for us, once Ave Maria and once the South African national anthem - that was really beautiful because the acoustics in the cave are really good. A real goosebumps moment!

In the evening, we met another group of international students who also slept in the same hostel in Mossel Bay. Together we wanted to go out for dinner and on the recommendation of one of my fellow travelers, we went to the restaurant with the best reviews on Tripadvisor. We were all, let's say, casually dressed, some of us in sweatpants. So we immediately felt uncomfortable because the restaurant was very fancy. Since there were twelve of us, we were seated at a large table in a kind of separate room. Our waiter could not take us seriously either. He could only utter his typical polite phrases while laughing. The prices were also rather high for South African standards, but still normal for German standards. Somehow it turned out to be a very funny evening, even though we were glad to be outside again.

Afterwards, we went to a bar where there was an Open Mic Night, so anyone who wanted to could sing and/or play the guitar. That was very cool and some members of our group took advantage of it.

On Saturday morning, we had breakfast in a super cute coffee roastery, all put together with old cars and boats and even an old bathtub as a bench - and with a view of the harbor. I always especially enjoy these moments when you randomly find beautiful, special places where you just feel comfortable.

We spent the rest of the day in Mossel Bay. I had found a route online through small, beautiful streets of the town, then along the coast and then back into the town. It was quite beautiful. Then we just wanted to have a quick lunch. But overall, we ended up sitting in the restaurant for two and a half hours because everything took forever. As a result, we didn't arrive in Wilderness until the evening, where we spent the third and final night of our trip.

In Wilderness, we had a very cool hostel, the Wild Farm Backpackers, on the hills with a view of the sea and cow pastures all around. Very idyllic. We spent the evening there.

In Wilderness, you can go hiking, so we wanted to take advantage of that before the return trip. We walked the 'Half Collared Kingfisher Trail', a ten-kilometer hiking trail along a river to a waterfall. It was absolutely beautiful there and the weather was perfect. After that, we started the journey back and made another stop in Plettenberg. All in all, it was a very cool but also exhausting weekend, we spent a lot of time in the car to see as much as possible in a short time and sometimes we had very different opinions about the planning and time management :D But we definitely made the most of the free days :)