Starting Our Road Trip – Cape Town to Knysna

right side of the car and traffic keeps left. Instead of the usual mindless activity of driving on the side you are used to, driving on the opposite side requires a bit more focus and takes some getting used to.

We left Cape Town in our new wheels – a Mercedes V-class 8-seater van. The van is basic but spacious with plenty of luggage space at the back. Leo and I are up front, the girls sit in the second row and the boys sit at the back.  Leo drives most of the time but I will pitch in with driving if the distance is long, if Leo is tired or if he has had a beer. AY is in charge of snack distribution and RY is in charge of entertainment, mainly podcasts. Favorites have been “Greeking Out” and “Who Smarted?”.

The drive just out of Cape Town took us through beautiful views of the rugged coastline and after a couple hours on the road, we reached our lunch stop. Gansbaai is a fishing town and known to tourists as a destination for whale watching and shark cage diving. I have been shark cage diving about 15 years ago in Gaansbai. This time around, we decided to leave the shark cage diving for when the children are older. We stopped at a restaurant called The Great White House that has a Southern Right Whale skeleton suspended above the dining room. We enjoyed a seafood lunch of abalone, fried whitebait, seafood pasta and fish and chips and headed on our way.

We drove another five hours through beautiful views of lush greenery, a mosaic of every shade of green you could imagine. We had officially entered the Garden Route. The Garden Route is known as one of the most scenic drives in the world for its stunning scenery including dramatic coastline, indigenous forests with a diversity of flora and fauna and quaint coastal towns. It reminded us a bit like driving through New England or the California coastline.

We didn’t reach Knysna as we had hoped during the daylight hours. It was dark by the time we arrived at our Airbnb and although we had to navigate our arrival and entry in the dark, we could feel that this was a special place. We were all tired and hungry so we whipped up a quick meal of instant noodles and went to bed.

Author

  • Song

    Song is the mother of four children. She and her family have stepped away from it all and in September 2023, began traveling the world while homeschooling. Song is an ABC (American born Chinese) and has an undergraduate degree from Cornell and an MBA from Harvard. She is an entrepreneur and an educator. Her hobbies include learning, traveling, reading, cooking and baking, and being with children.

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