This post was going to be about Hermanus, South Africa. But Hermanus is just one of several spots along The Garden Route with eyegasm-inducing scenery, charming cafes and and enough whales and dolphins for an entire season of Mammal Planet.
Prior to leaving on our trip to South Africa we announced that we were going to rent a car and drive from Cape Town along The Garden Route, ending in Knysna. Our friends and relatives set their DVRs to cover the nightly news so they wouldn’t miss the reporting of our grisly murders (best case). As much as we hated to disappoint everyone (again) it was an easy, safe and wonderful experience.
One of the first places we stopped was Betty’s Bay, a desolate, gorgeous area of rocks, crashing waves and Jackass Penguins. (The correct name is African Penguins. They’re also called Jackass Penguins because they make a braying noise like a donkey, aka jackass, and because it’s a funnier name.) We were there in May and it was chilly but the chill seemed to deter more sensible types so we had a long strip of beach to ourselves.
There’s a boardwalk that essentially goes nowhere so we bumbled on past the end of it and came to a charming place called The Southern Cross Cafe. The woman who owned it was so Zen it was almost unnerving but she made good tea and was an artist. We were all BFFs by the end of our visit. Sadly, it appears from a web search that the cafe is now out of business.
We finally reached our destination, The Arabella Hotel and Spa in time for dinner. When we stayed there it was still a Westin property so we stayed for free on our Starwood Amex points which we so dearly love. This is the property where, upon meeting a charming couple from Ireland, Brunette famously told them that her favorite place in Ireland is “Dingleberry”. They avoided us after that.
The hotel website pompously claims they “deliver grandeur in design”. It would be fun to go back and call room service and ask them to “please deliver some grandeur design, hold the mayo” but that probably won’t happen.
If you’re one of those people who inexplicably travels the world to hit little balls with a stick there are several golf courses in the Hermanus area, one of which is this hotel’s 18 hole, 72 par Championship course.
One of our day excursions from our fancy pants hotel was to Plettenberg Bay. We took a boat trip that produced the highest critter-per-dollar ratio of anything you could ever do in nature! The boat was launched in an alarming fashion which the company, Ocean Adventures, referred to as “the dolly trailer system”. The passengers get into the boat and then it’s basically launched into the sea (they say “pushed” but we know the difference between a push and a launch. Maybe.) In any event they were a very good tour company that we recommend.
In the beginning of the trip Blonde was highly distracted by an enormous, dorky, excess saliva producing German man who proudly announced that he travels on a U.S. passport (forget why). He was such a rude man lurching about in a manner that put him in front of everyone’s pictures that Blonde wanted to contact the U.S. embassy to see if his U.S. passport could be revoked. However, a pod of enthusiastically mating Southern Right Whales managed to get Blonde’s attention off the passport abuser.
We weren’t in a small boat but we weren’t in a big boat either and when you have whales that can weigh up to 60 tons apiece and they’re gettin’ it on to the whale version of Barry White, vigilance is a good idea.
Plettenberg Bay has so many mammals that if you had a huge net and a great deal of strength you could scoop up a lifetime supply. Besides the whales there were Bottlenose Dolphins cavorting all around. How they didn’t bang into the mating whales was a mystery to us.
A word of caution: Your camera may get wet on this boat trip. Blonde took her brand new most expensive camera ever along with its expensive lens and it survived. However, she is not someone to model yourself after when it comes to treating electronics sensibly. On the other hand, if you don’t have a zoom lens you’re going to have a lot of pictures of dots.
And just because the aforementioned camera was taken on this trip you are going to be subjected to two more photos from Plettenberg Bay.
Our trip to Plettenberg Bay, German/American dork notwithstanding, was an incredible amount of fun and left us famished. The tour company showed us the way to a little fish restaurant along the beach where either the food was amazing or we were just so hungry we thought it was amazing. Didn’t matter to us!
We did another day trip from the Arabella Hotel and that was into the town of Hermanus. Hermanus claims to be the home of the largest Southern Right Whale Festival in the world and we see no reason to question that claim. Even when there isn’t a festival they have the world’s only Whale Crier who blows a kelp horn when whales are spotted in Walker Bay.
We enjoyed the scenery in Hermanus and had a very civilized lunch at the The Marine Hermanus Hotel, a Relais & Chateaux property right on the coast. We didn’t stay there but it would be lovely to do so. A quick rate check shows the cheapest room, including breakfast, for two people to be about $320 USD a night in July.
Hermanus is touristy but it wasn’t overly so in May and it has managed to retain its charm even with its popularity and how many people can you say that of? We found a gelato shop which is enough to get us to rate anywhere favorably. There are also some very nice little shops, a craft market on the pier and rocks where kayakers can smash themselves and then entertain tourists as the kayakers struggle to get out of the water.
Lengthy as it is, this post barely touches on the fun and beauty of The Garden Route. To summarize: You should go.