The Route

This blog is our diary of our self-drive holiday along parts of the garden route in South Africa in April 2019. We have created an interactive map of the route. If you're interested in a specific place, just click on the arrow. We started our trip in Cape Town and finished in Port Elizabeth before …

Driving the Garden Route April 2019

What an amazing adventure. It feels like we've been away longer than two weeks - I've forgotten my address and started calling things the wrong names (cell phone, freeway, zucchini). I wanted to write a final post for anyone out there trying to find information about driving the garden route because we found it difficult …

They thought it was all over…

Saturday 27th April When I was writing the last blog posts on the flight from Port Elizabeth to Johannesburg, little did I know we'd be in South Africa for another day - Freedom Day! The flight to London and been over booked and despite the best efforts of Wendy (from Virgin Atlantic), they could find …

Surfing Port Elizabeth

We wanted to make the most of our last day, so we headed down to the seafront and hired body boards and wetsuits for the morning. There were only three other people out surfing with us on Humewood Beach so we had loads of space. Body boarding was lots of fun and the waves brought …

Port Elizabeth

Friday 26th April. Seb will struggle to choose his highlight of the final day. He headed out on his own 7 o'clock this morning to have the car valeted (it was covered in sand & we weren't prepared to face a hefty fine). Seemingly, this was an experience in itself. After paying, he headed for …

Addo Elephant National Park

Thursday 25th April. Addo Elephant National Park is the third largest national park in South Africa and home to over 600 elephants. This was a must for us as it was only an hour's drive from Port Elizabeth. However, we had been told that with the heavy rains there hadn't been many sightings of the …

The Final Destination

After our surfing fun, we headed to Nina's Restaurant again for some lunch. Seb had the surfers sandwich, now he's a pro (chicken and bacon)! I had a tasty wrap. The drive to Port Elizabeth was a straightforward one. Port Elizabeth is a surprisingly big city and still has a vibrant, fully working port as …

Baby Turtle

Dylan the sea turtle deserves a post all of his own. One of the girls at Jeffrey's Bay Surf School had found this hatchling turtle stranded on the beach. He had got very lost from the warmer waters he should be in. He was freezing cold and barely moving. She put him on a damp …

Surfing Jeffrey’s Bay

Wednesday 24th April. The second best beach to surf in the world! OK, so it's Supertubes beach that boasts the best right-hand ride in the world (according to CNN). It offers long, fast barrels off an intense point break. Obviously wanting to experience the best the world could offer, our AirBnB was overlooking Supertubes beach. …

Jeffrey’s Bay

Tuesday 23rd April. We had a lovely breakfast at Andelomi Nature's Rest and chatted to the owner about his time in the UK. We had a short drive over to Jeffery's Bay (just over 1 hour) but the weather has continued to be very rainy. It's too bad for our surfing lesson 😢. We found …