FLIGHT OF THE PHOENIX: Plett And Knysna

The Garden Route is a 300-kilometre stretch of the south-eastern coast of South Africa. Our travel agent from &Beyond had picked Plettenberg Bay as a base to explore the area. Known as Plett by the locals, it was a pretty coastal town, a lovely one to stay in with the beautiful mild weather. Now in midsummer, the temperatures only reached a high in the mid twenties with temperatures cooling right down to the teens at night.

Breakfast was included in our stay and was declared as one of the best ever by Elliot. The hit for him were the freshly baked homemade bread and croissants. The cold selections were plentiful and the hot options were freshly cooked to order. Tea and coffee were served to us at the table which made it a nice change from the usual hotel buffet breakfast.

Fresh juices including strawberry juice!

Elliot returned to this table frequently...

Freshly baked and warm

Best croissants he reckon

The hot food offerings

Whoever thought of using hash browns for eggs benedict is a genius! So good!

The first activity planned was to hike the Robberg Peninsula that was such a visual geographical icon of the town. The morning was heavily overcast but the Albany luck stayed with us as the rain stayed away. There was a choice of 3 trails lengths with each longer trail going further towards the point. We ended up doing the middle option of 5.5km which was tiring enough! The trails require at least moderate fitness and would be difficult for anyone with knee, ankle or hip conditions. It would also not be suitable for very young children unless you were planning on carrying them. The trail involved steep inclines, very large steps, uneven surfaces,, a considerable section of walking on sand and at times cliff side tracks with no railings! This equated to a lot of fun for our children...
The walk itself was just beautiful and definitely well worth the time.

Studying the map

The family voted for the middle length. The children wanted to do 10km. Ummm no thanks

The start of the trail had us looking back at Robberg Beach where our guesthouse was

The promontory we were about to walk around. We would end up walking up high on this side and down on the beach on the other side

Looking back towards the mainland, That was how far we had trekked!

We could smell and hear them before we could see them! Jonah looking down on the Cape fur seal colony. Yes...no railings. Hence might not be so safe for younger children .

Swimming in the clear water and just enjoying the sun

As headed toward where we had to loop around to start the return trek, we had to walk up a steep sand track.

Once at the top, we had walk a steep sand track all the way down!!

This was at the bottom. For a sense of scale, the 2 tiny figures are Lara and Jonah

A steep climb back up, but steep enough for Elliot obviously who could still check his phone while climbing....

This was how steep it was...

But the silly people thought running down the sand again would be fun and so climbed it again...

Shaking out the excess sand before continuing on the track back towards the car park

The dramatically beautiful scenery on the track back

No rails, no guards, just stepping on rocks...

We had to have an enforced break as Mal had to grab his oncall shifts for the following year. The rest of the family took this opportunity to either do holiday homework (yes so sad), organise school extracurricular activities for 2019, nap, have the delicious complimentary afternoon tea or watch television. We ventured out to the town of Knysna in the late afternoon for dinner, wandering around the Waterfront district before settling down to a seafood dinner as recommended by the guesthouse concierge. As luck would have it, it was restaurant's 21st birthday so everything was 21% off. Bargain!!!