A South African Road Trip: Tsitsikamma National Park

Fridays are great for spontaneous road trips, and so it was that we found ourselves on the road to South Africa's Tsitsikamma National Park (with the baby and dog in tow). Despite it being just 226 km from our Mossel Bay home, Tsitsikamma is still a good four hour trip, thanks to several mountain passes and the eternal construction projects of the National Highway (N2). We left on Saturday morning, allowing us to stop along the way at the well-known "Wild Oats" farmer's market in the town of Sedgefield. The market is a real gem, complete with French music, fresh bread, German sausages, and a big shady area to sit down and savor a tasty morning snack. A young couple from Cape Town caught our attention with their likewise handsome canine companions, but all too soon the time had come to continue our journey eastwards. The commute from Sedgefield to Tsitsikamma takes approximately two hours, and it was much more difficult to find our pre-arranged pet-friendly accommodation than we had expected (as it was on a farm at the end of a rough, dusty, dirt road, and was 20 minutes from the actual park).

After dropping off our luggage and the dog, we drove to the National Park, starting at the Restaurant and Information booth, in an effort to get our bearings. There's a nice 45 minute hike originating at the restaurant, and after a quick drink (and some photos... what a spectacular spot!) we packed the baby into his little hiking backpack and began our hike. It's a hike for anyone, really, and after about 20 minutes you reach a suspension bridge which goes out across the gorge (my son's first time crossing a suspension bridge!). It's a nice walk, and afterwards we stopped at the restaurant again, this time for a frosty milkshake. For dinner, we decided to go elsewhere, and drove into Tsitsikamma Village to see what we could find. After driving down the only street in town, we settled on the restaurant at the Protea Hotel, which was quite cute. We were able to eat outside, which meant that Lukas could crawl around a bit on the nice lawn while we were waiting for our meal. The food was great, and so was the service. I wish we could say the same about our son! Oh well.

The next day we had breakfast with our hostess at the Dolphin View accommodation, then headed out on another hike. The well-known Dolphin Trail goes just past the accommodation, but the whole trail takes several days to do, and we only had a few hours. Had we taken enough food and water, and had it not been the baby's nap time, we might have been gone longer than an hour and a half. It was really quite steep, though... and my husband insisted on keeping the baby on his back (poor guy!). Once we got back, we were drenched with sweat, but we quickly packed up and got on the road, stopping halfway at the Waterfront in Knysna for lunch. We ate at a seafood restaurant with horrible service, but good food, and Knysna is really a nice little town (in comparison to Mossel Bay). From there, the my son slept all the way home, which made the trip fairly painless (yay!). All-in-all, we had a great weekend, and we decided that want to try to start a tradition of doing a family hike on Sundays.