Day 362 / 127

Date: 9 April 2023
Sleeping location: Nature’s Valley B&B, Nature’s Valley, South Africa
Distance (km today/total/total Part 2): 62 / 22622 / 7785
Estimated climb (m today/total/total Part 2): 400 / 213300 / 95300
Most pissed off animal award: Hyrax, always
Day in three words: Impressive river stuff

After breakfast (a fairly standard selection of continental plus bacon and eggs, but competently done: 6.5/10) and during packing I noticed that my rear tyre was almost flat. This was most frustrating as it was a new inner tube and by this point I was getting extremely bored of fixing rear wheel flats in South Africa. I hastily patched and pumped it and hoped for the the best, then we set off along a short section of flat road before dropping down 200m+ from the Tsitsikamma plateau to the sea at the Storms River mouth.  

The setting was very beautiful, with the dramatic river canyon meeting the wild sea in an unspoiled landscape of craggy rocks, thick greenery and little sheltered sandy beaches. Three suspension bridges have been built across the water and we spent a couple of hours wandering around and taking in the views from all possible angles. This is a big spot on the Garden Route and there were quite a lot of tourists, but not so many that it became annoying. One family included a teen wearing a Crystal Palace jacket, and I pointed to my Brixton Cycles hat and said “south London!”, but they just seemed confused and the dad just said “yes”. Afterwards I realised that my hat doesn’t actually say Brixton Cycles on it, so they probably just thought I was a mad idiot pointing to his head. On the way back we saw a load of hyraxes all hanging out on the rocks close to the path, seemingly unbothered by the people close by. I found this very funny because they all had the classic hyrax pissed off facial expression, so I imagined them all saying “there goes the neighbourhood” and bitching to one another about the tourists as they stomped past. 

Despite this being a tourist trap the onsite restaurant was pretty good and I had some oysters as part of a strange lunch also involving salad, chips and peri peri chicken livers. We then had to drag our lunches up the same hill we’d come down, back to the plateau, before heading along the wide and quiet but boring N2 road. The route we’d planned had us turning off the N2 and heading down and then back up the steep Bloukrans Pass, but the road signs informed us that this was closed so we stayed on the N2 and saved ourselves some 20% gradients. The N2 avoided the pass via the impressive Bloukrans Bridge, a huge concrete arch across the deep river canyon which people can bungee jump* off if they feel like doing that. We didn’t feel like doing that so we just looked at the bridge for a bit and learned how it was built, which was less exciting but more informative. 

 

Shortly after crossing the bridge (which provided more delightful views) we turned off the N2, briefly examined the idea of going down Bloukrans pass before realising it was a lot of climb for not a lot of view, then enjoyed a zippy technical descent down into Nature's Valley, which as well as being a brand of yoghurt is also a small town within the Tsitsikamma national park. Its setting is wonderful, strung out along the beach with a lagoon on one side and thickly forested hills on the other two. The village consists almost entirely of quiet side streets with lots of trees so our B&B was on one of these. I enjoyed another bath before we took a walk down the beach with the sun setting and pink clouds over the sea and distant hills. It was a beautiful scene, and one that could only be improved by a delicious seafood platter, a couple of tasty beers and the football on the telly. Thankfully the only restaurant in town could provide all of these things. A much better day after a couple of uninspiring ones. 

*Or bungy jump, as it was spelled here - pronounced “bun-gee” I assume - which perhaps means something entirely different, for example that the rope is not elastic, or 20% of the time it deliberately releases you and you fall to your death