The Garden Route is one of the most famous road trips in the world. National Geographic describes the Garden Route as “a serendipitous combination of world-class beaches, iridescent lagoons and indigenous forests interspersed with welcoming towns, and a simple, scenic, ocean-hugging highway”. Knysna is a town about a third of the way along the Garden Route and it is famous for its vibrant restaurant scene and for the peaceful lagoon that separates Leisure Island from the mainland. (https://www.nationalgeographic.com/travel/article/partner-content-ultimate-road-trip-garden-route)
We searched for a place where we could do a bit of, but not too much walking, and be rewarded with stunning views. Knysna Heads fit the bill. The Knysna Heads are the headlands of two peninsulas, 300 meters apart from each other, that form the mouth of the Knysna River Estuary where water from the Knysna River flows into the Indian Ocean. The estuary is an important area of biodiversity. It is home to a diverse collection of species, including the endangered Knysna seahorse.
From the parking lot, it wasn’t but a few minutes of walking to take us to the series of viewing decks where we could see the Knysna Heads. Archaeologists have found stone tools that indicate the Heads were inhabited as much as 300,000 years ago though it is suspected that there were inhabitants far before that. During the colonial period, permanent European settlers began settling in the Heads in 1803. The first settler, George Rex, was the pioneer of the timber industry that later become Knysna’s primary industry in the 19th and 20th centuries.
Since then, the Heads has remained an on again, off again port due to its deceptively narrow channel, that at its narrowest, is only 90 meters wide. For years, the Benn family served the port as pilots and harbormasters. Today, the Heads are still used as a port area though mostly by recreational boats, like the kayakers that we spotted, and watched over by volunteers. It was a glorious day with the sun shining down on us casting a shimmering reflection on the water.
After viewing the Heads from high above, we descended to sea-level to get a different view. There were a few vendors selling their wares and we were happy to find the perfect lightweight sun hat to replace the one DY lost during our first week in Kenya. We also found the perfect hat to replace Leo’s hat that he lent to DY but then DY lost, during our second week in Kenya. Now we just need to find a pair of hiking pants for DY to replace the pair of which he lost one detachable pant leg, during our third week in Kenya. Apart from two hats and a pant leg, I don’t think we have lost much else. On the contrary, we have gained so much more than we could possibly lose.
So funny on the objects DY has lost