15th July 08

Date: 15th July 08
Location: Oudtshoorn, South Africa
Weather: Rough night with huge storms, rain and wind!
Status: Starting to feel the effects of a cold, damn it!

Up early and got the tents packed away quickly as we had a full day ahead, left the comfortable Karoo Soul Backpackers and drove north to the Cango Caves to explore this underground attraction.

Talk about a worthwhile visit, the 18kms of under ground cave networks are superbly preserved and feature stalactites, stalagmites, dripstone caverns and some of the tightest spaces I’ve ever had to squeeze through. The Adventure Tour took us through the grand opening caves and deep into the hillside but to get there we had to squirm, crawl and wiggle our way through some damn tight openings in the rocks….luckily I’ve lost weight on this trip and managed without too many difficulties!

After a hour of the tour we broke out back into the daylight and decided amongst ourselves the coast would be the next destination….shame we didn’t see the weather forecast!

The 150kms drive was easy enough to Mossel Bay, a rather unattractive town which promised a lot more in my mind, we found a beach side campsite overlooking the surf break and as we set the tents up the wind started pumping to nearly gale force, the rain joined in for good measure and 2 of our 4 tents we flattened. Luckily I’d turned the Colonel into the wind to minimise damage and came out unscathed.

We headed out for a decent seafood dinner the Kingfisher and Bre and I shared a platter of calamari, prawns, mussels and salmon….double yummy!

Bed

End of day location: Mossel Bay, South Africa
Distance covered: 154kms